South Lakeland car parking charges set to be cut

11:31am Tuesday 15th January 2013 in News

CAR parking charges in the South Lakes could be cut as a council looks at implementing a new discount scheme.

South Lakeland District Council, which has been heavily criticised for its car park fees, launched a five-year plan for housing, the economy, the environment, culture and wellbeing last week.

Westmorland and Lonsdale MP Tim Farron said the authority was looking to introduce a card that would allow locals to get discounted parking rates. 

Mr Farron said local business people had told him reduced charges would make a 'massive difference' to them.

The MP has asked SLDC to scrap night-time parking charges to 'give a boost to the night time economy in South Lakeland'.

“The plan for discounted car parking for local people is something I wholeheartedly support," said Mr Farron

“I hope they will progress this idea as soon as possible. Cheaper parking will boost business, boost the economy and make a difference on our high streets.”

Comments(8)

jazzactivist says...
2:31pm Tue 15 Jan 13

This could be good, if it happens. On Sunday evening a friend and I met in Keswick to go for an evening meal. As we had travelled from different directions by car we each had to pay £1.20 for 35 mins! We arrived in the car park at 6.25pm, only to discover that there was a charge for parking until 7pm. The lowest amount we could pay for was 1 hour. It may not sound like a lot, but it is annoying if you live in the Lakes and still end up paying in the evening for a space in an empty car park! I've generally given up going to places for shopping or leisure where it is impossible to park for free.

Perhaps the Council could offer an optional additional payment on Council Tax for a single voucher that allows local permanent residents to park in any car park throughout the year. One voucher per car at, say, £100 per year per car?

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sklanc says...
4:40pm Tue 15 Jan 13

i have not paid to park in Kendal for 12 months, I made a decision I would not pay the punitive parking fees in town, I now park out of the centre for free and make the 15minute walk in part of my visit. Have lost weight, seen historical and natural features i have never noticed before and probably saved £400 in parking fees. . .I realised that this is not the solution for everyone but it's worked for me and a couple of friends who now do likewise. It beggars belief that a local authority even charges to park in the town centre during a deep recession .

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Cas220 says...
6:34pm Tue 15 Jan 13

I wonder how 'local' you will have to be.....I live 15 miles out of Kendal yet it is still my local town. I never used to pay parking charges as I made sure I never spent more than 1 hour in town and used one of the few free spaces. Now I have a baby I pay in the multi-storey as I never know how long I'll be - however I think the charges there really are daylight robbery, I mean what do they spend all of that money on?

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848848 says...
1:14am Wed 16 Jan 13

I believe 6 million pounds is the annual collected car parking revenue that is divided equally and discounted from the rates for each household in SLDC.
It may mean as much as a £132 discount on your rates bill per household which is a welcome thought.
I also note from meeting minutes that the revenue also pays for the toilet facilities in each car park which you will agree is an excellent use of these funds.
Cumbria CC removed SLDC's ability to issue penalties to motorists parked in contravention on our streets and only allows them now to issue yellow bags to those parked in a car park - so when their enforcement revenue diminished they decided to increase their revenue by enforcing night time car park yellow bag ticketing and increase the charges disabled drivers had to pay.
These greedy events now have caused so much anger they are now facing a £55,000 disability compensation bill consequently this news has been posted to diffuse the backlash they know is coming their way!
The publicity is so bad they are allegedly dismissing via redundancy two parking supervisors in March and merging the senior Lakes Warden position to oversee Car Parking hopefully to reduce their overhead running costs. Will it result in lower rates?....

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le chat noir says...
10:59pm Wed 16 Jan 13

I was very recently in Northallerton where Hambleton district council charge 40 p an hour to park. The town was busy,with very few empty shops and the shopkeepers were not complaining about lack of footfall.I understand some work has been done nationally on the correlation between high parking charges and towns failing to attract shoppers.I choose to go elsewhere rather than be 'mugged' in Kendal.

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jazzactivist says...
5:33pm Mon 21 Jan 13

848848 - do you mean the upkeep of all those car park toilet facilities that have been closed by SLDC, supposedly due to lack of funds?

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848848 says...
1:26am Tue 22 Jan 13

jazzactivist...
SLDC are in my belief are running a superb service by providing toilet facilities to the visiting public within their car parks.

This can be corroborated easily by using their web site to access the minutes of Councillor meetings - who proposed and followed through with the continuation of providing those car park based toilets by ensuring the funding to run them was from the car park revenue. Otherwise its a cost to high I suspect.

Being critical of their administration also allows for applaud when you believe their decisions are correct.

These posting are just personal opinions and when visiting other boroughs there is a total lack of toilet facilities but not in the Lakes thankfully.

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jazzactivist says...
11:49am Tue 22 Jan 13

848848 - All I can say is that, if that is your genuine opinion, then you must be one of the decision makers who decided to close the toilets! Not that long ago there was a huge public furore about the Council's decision to close toilet facilities. In fact, the one in the Peppercorn car park in Kendal has been demolished, as has the one near the river, and in Grange over Sands there are no toilets between the ornamental gardens at one far end of the prom and the Berner's ones at the other far end! SLDC needs to seriously look at public provision of essentials such as car parking, public toilets, social housing etc. No-one minds paying something towards these facilities in order to keep them, but not the unaffordable fees and inconveniences that SLDC seems to want.

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