Issue - meetings

Review of Parking Fees and Charges 2013/14

Meeting: 22/01/2013 - Cabinet (Item 105)

105 Review of Parking Fees and Charges 2013/14 PDF 109 KB

(Cabinet Member with Special Responsibility Councillor Hamilton-Cox)

Report of the Head of Environmental Services

Additional documents:

Minutes:

(Cabinet Member with Special Responsibility Councillor Hamilton-Cox)

Cabinet received a report from the Head of Environmental Services to consider the annual review of parking fees and charges for 2013/14.

The options, options analysis, including risk assessment and officer preferred option, were set out in the report as follows:

Option 1(a)

This option was aimed at achieving the budgetary target of £45.6K that had been included in the 2013/14 Draft Budget.

Short Stay and Long Stay Car Parks	Current Tariff	Proposed Tariff	Additional Income
Increase Up to 1 hour tariff	£1.20	£1.30	£46,000

Advantages

Disadvantages

Risks

This option meets the budgetary target and ensures that car parking makes a contribution to a balanced budget.

This option avoids the need for additional savings or income from other functions of the Council.

Although this option only seeks to increase one tariff, this accounts for 42% of all ticket sales and the first hour’s tariff often influences customers’ perceptions of the overall level of all parking charges.

This option requires the County Council to implement increases to its 1 hour charges to maintain the required differential.

If the County Council does not increase its charges and this option is approved, charges would be further misaligned and this could lead to longer term tariff issues and County needing to make significant increases in the future.

There is always the risk that customer resistance would be greater resulting in budgetary issues.

Option 1(b)

This option was aimed at making a contribution of £33K to the budgetary target of £45.6K resulting in a budget shortfall of approximately £13K.

Long Stay Car Parks	Current Tariff	Proposed Tariff	Additional Income
Increase Up to 3 hour tariff	£2.20	£2.50	£24,000
Increase Up to 5 hour tariff	£3.70	£4.00	£3,000
Increase Over 5 hours tariff	£6.00	£6.50	£1,800
Other Car Parks
Increase Up to 4 hour tariff	£0.80	£1.00	£3,600
Increase Over 4 hour tariff	£1.20	£1.40	£600

Advantages

Disadvantages

Risks

This option raises over 70% of the required budget target.

This option limits tariff increases to long stay car parks that tend to be used by commuters.

This option could lead to increased permit sales.

This option does not affect any short stay tariffs that are a key part of maintaining city and town centre viability.

This option does not require the County Council to specifically increase their on-street charges although this would still be desirable to implement the differential charges.

This option affects a number of long stay tariffs that could reverse the increased long stay sales in Lancaster and further reduce the long stay sales in Morecambe.

The increase in long stay tariffs could lead to customers choosing not use car parks and park on-street in unrestricted parking areas causing further difficulties for residents living in these areas.

There is always the risk that customer resistance would be greater resulting in budgetary issues.

Option 1(c)

This was to consider approving Options 1a and 1b resulted in a range of increases covering both short stay and long ... view the full minutes text for item 105