Liverpool Council defends £2.40 car park ticket price hike

The leader of Liverpool Council has defended the move to increase parking charges in the city centre for a second time in 12 months. Cllr Liam Robinson said the price of a ticket in town was “something we needed to modernise” but denied tariffs were being used by the local authority as a “cash cow.”

Following a review dating back to April, the price of half an hour leaving your car within the inner city centre has now gone up to £2.40 while an hour has increased to £4.60. The move applies to all council owned car parks and spaces throughout the city centre.

The increase is inline with a rise in the consumer price index (CPI) of 3.1%. The largest uplift on any single tariff in a council car parking space is 70p.

Cllr Robinson, speaking on a BBC Radio Merseyside phone-in, explained why cabinet members had signed off on the changes. He said: “We do acknowledge the charges did go up, they went up largely in line with inflation so for most places it was an additional 10p.

“Now not trying to belittle the fact lots of people are finding it tougher with the cost of living, I think what we’ve tried to do is do things in quite a joined up fashion. We hadn’t reviewed city centre car parking for 30 years so when we did it last year it was always going to be quite a big change from what people had been used to.”

A commercial review of charges across areas including leisure, parking, Liverpool Film Office, bereavement services and city halls took place between April and Autumn this year. Benchmarking work also took place to assess the costs against other core cities around the country.

A 30 minute space within the inner parking zone – which is now chargeable from 7am to 11pm – has gone up by 10p from £2.30 to £2.40. A two hour stay has risen to £6.80 from £6.50 while up to four hours, or five hours after 6pm, now costs £11, up from £10.60.

Charges in the outer zone of the city centre increased to £1.90 for 30 minutes – a rise of 10p. Parking for an hour or two hours has been lifted by 20p to £3.60 and £5.60.

On average, across all council managed spaces, including Victoria Street, Paddington Village, Mount Pleasant, Kings Dock car parks, the price of parking is rising by an average of 4%. These are discretionary charges, meaning the city council is not bound by law to introduce them.

Cllr Robinson said: “What we knew we needed to do was bring it up to date quite quickly and equally, the money that’s raised through the parking charges, that goes back into the enforcement team we’re recruiting for and how that team are working out and about around the clock.

“For example, this last Saturday, we did a great operation with taxi licensing and the parking enforcement teams dealing with lots of issues with city centre parking, mainly the ones who were blocking taxi ranks, so we were able to issue over 500 tickets to deal with that and we’ve had some really good feedback from the taxi trade on that so it’s about doing it in a joined up way.”

The Kensington and Fairfield member said targeted enforcement had also taken place around Anfield since the start of the football season following feedback from residents. The Labour group leader denied the scheme was being used to bolster the council’s coffers.

He said: “It’s not that at all because we’re not allowed to use it as a cash cow because it has to go back into enforcement. One of the things people often bring up is problem parking, lots of places across the city, both in the city centre and in different communities, so that’s why we’ve been upping our game with enforcement right across the city.

“Still more we need to do but I know we’re issuing a lot more tickets than we were three or four years ago because that is what residents want us to do.

“It was something we needed to modernise and I think that’s why we’ve had to step our way through.”