Plan to raise parking charges is attacked (From The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald)

Plan to raise parking charges is attacked

PLANS to increase city centre parking charges by ten per cent have been branded premature and potentially damaging by business chiefs.

Chairman of the city centre partnership Ian Newman has written to council leaders protesting at the price hike, which could hit all local authority-controlled short- and long-stay car parks from April.

"Salisbury has not yet received the much-awaited go-ahead from the government for the implementation of the Wilton and Downton park-and-ride sites," Mr Newman wrote.

"Neither has the city benefited from the completion of the Variable Message Signing scheme, which would benefit visitors and shoppers.

"For these reasons, we do not feel that the council should be obliged to increase the charges by ten per cent.

"We feel any action now would be premature."

The partnership is concerned that the increases will deter car-users from shopping in Salisbury and said the city could lose out if prices were not competitive.

Mr Newman said: "CCM's monitoring of car park occupancy shows that, for the last six months of 2003, occupancy was lower than the levels recorded in 2002. We are concerned about the potential effects further increases would have on occupancy rates for this year."

As reported in the Journal last week, transport improvement in Salisbury is hanging in the balance as the government decides whether to release an extra £8.5m for park-and-ride sites and other key projects.

District council portfolio holder Dennis Brown said city centre parking prices would only go up if Salisbury received this cash boost, as the extra revenue would be essential to subsidise park-and-ride.

"It is very important that park-and-ride charges are 50 per cent lower than parking in the city centre, so people are encouraged to use them," he said. "Therefore we need more money from city centre parking to help pay for it.

"But all these things have to be done in the right order.

"Increases have to be passed by council and advertised for 28 days, so I have to start the process now.

"I can always stop it if we don't get the money from the government.

"Also, if the park-and-rides do go ahead, we might need more money, and I thought it was better to do that through small increases, rather than one big jump."