Thousands face having to pay to park at home

A report says parking permits are heavily-subsidised in Hull and well below neighbouring local authorities.

Thousands of residents who live near the KC Stadium, have parking permits, but currently don’t pay.

But they and thousands more who do pay £7.50 for an annual pass could see the charge rise to £33, a 400 per cent hike.

Coun Phil Webster, who sits on the council’s cabinet, which will make the final decision, said they were faced with tough choices. He accepted that it was a “massive” hike, but added: “We just don’t think it is fair for other people to subsidise parking which is what the taxpayer is doing at the moment.”

“You look at the things we pay for like the Rape Crisis Centre and if the general public was asked should we be subsidising that or parking what do you think they would say?

“This is a situation we would rather not see, but this is the harsh reality of cuts.”

However deputy leader Coun Daren Hale said there had been no agreement and there would have to be consultation first. Neighbours near the stadium had been given passes to compensate them for the disruption of having the stadium on their doorsteps and Coun Hale said: “You can’t change the rules of the game halfway through.”

The move comes eight months after councillors in Leeds were forced to scrap plans to introduce a fee for resident parking permits after a huge backlash.

Otherwise charges vary widely councils with residents in Sheffield paying £36 for a first permit, and £72 for a second - charges are halved for low-carbon emission cars - while in York it can cost from £46.50 to £125 for a first permit and £157.50 for a second outside the city centre.

A report due to be discussed by the planning committee next Tuesday says charges for parking in the stadium zone have been at zero “however no guarantee has been given to residents that the charge would remain at zero.”

It gives an example of a controlled parking zone in three streets off one of the main shopping streets in Hull, Holderness Road, as costing £8,865 to administer, but only bringing in income of £5,093, a net loss of £3,772 a year.

It says charging 9,655 residents will allow for controlled parking zones to be self-funding.

The same meeting will discuss plans to offer discounts to businesses wanting to park in council-owned car parks in the face of competition from commercially-run parks.

The report says it is “essential” they can “attract customers who have the choice of other car park operators who are able to amend prices from one week to another and be able to offer similar discounts to businesses who only require a small number of passes.”

Coun Webster said: “The council have an ongoing responsibility to ensure businesses remain in the city centre and don’t go out of the city centre to business parks.

“This is one way of achieving that.”

Leeds Council scrapped the charges after receiving more than 4,200 responses to a consultation. At the time Coun Richard Lewis said despite “unprecedented budget pressures” the views of residents had been “hugely important.”