Charges per hour in most car parks in the Dover area could go up by nearly a quarter.

Dover District Council's cabinet will vote on whether to impose this at its meeting next Monday.

If voted through it would mean that the cost to use a council car park from April would go up from £1.30 for one hour to £1.60, a rise of 23%.

Some spaces will have charges imposed for the first time.

It comes at a time of controversy over councils raising parking charges with many saying they have to do it to recoup money lost during the pandemic lockdowns.

Dover District Council says that its fees were last put up in June 2020 and had been frozen in the four years before that.

An officer's' report to the cabinet said: "The availability and effective management of parking is an important factor in both maintaining and increasing the vitality of our town centres.

"There is a balance between charges to ensure parking spaces are not full all day and the risk that the cost dissuades visitors..."

"(There is) a difficult balance needing to be struck between the use of charges as a mechanism to ensure that parking spaces are rotated rather than being full all day against the risk that the cost of parking dissuades residents and visitors alike from using town centre businesses.

"In undertaking this annual review of the Council’s parking charges, it has been recognised from the outset that the pandemic has clearly had a significant impact on parking demand."

The charges, if voted through, would stay the same for all of 2022/23 and 2023/24.

They would go up from £1.30 to £1.60 an hour for the following off and on-street spaces and would continue to be from 9am to 6pm, in most cases from Monday to Saturday.

Deal. Beach Street (off-street only). Middle Street, South Street, Stanhope Road, Town Hall, West Street.

Dover. Bench Street, Camden Crescent, Ladywell, Maison Dieu, Norman Street, Pencester Road (off-street only),Russell Street, the Seafront, Stembrook, Woolcomber Street.

Sandwich. Market Street, New Street, The Quay.

Charges would go from £1.50 to £1.80 an hour in the following spaces.

Deal. Beach Street (on-street between Broad Street and South Street), King Street, Prince of Wales Terrace, Victoria Road

Dover. Casle Street, Pencester Road (on-street only).

Some spaces, such as at Gazen Salts, Sandwich, and Union Road, Deal,would see fees rise from £1 an hour to £1.30 while others, such as at the town's Guildhall, could have rises from £1.20 to £1.50.

The cost at Albany Place in Dover would go up from 70p to £1.

Dover Harbour Board is allowing the council to manage some of its car parks and share profits.

So previously free spaces would have a cost of £1.60 an hour at the following Dover car parks. De Bradlei Wharf, Union Street, Lord Warden House, Harbour House and the Marina.

Dover district's rural car parks are to remain free at present.

Residents' permit fees would not go up but for these zones there would be a reduced time limit for outsiders from two hours to one. This is in town centre on-street parking areas.

The enforcement times would lengthen, Mondays to Saturdays, from 8.30am to 5.30pm to 7am to 8pm.

The zones at Sondes Road, Ranelagh Road, Stanley Road, Clanwilliam Road in Deal, and at Coombe Valley Road, Dover, would have pay and display charges instead of limited time for non-permit holders.

Against Dover's present usual fee of £1.30 an hour, between 9pm and 6pm, Folkestone and Hythe District Council charges £1.20 between 8am and 6pm and Ashford Borough Council demands the same for 7am to 6pm.

But Thanet District Council demands £2,50 an hour between 8am and 6pm.

The Canterbury Whitefriars car park is £2.30 an hour round the clock and, at its Queningate/Watling Street spaces, £2.80 between 7.30am to 9pm.

These are planned to go up to £2.50 and £3.50 respectively by 2023/24.

Canterbury City Council raising charges across its district, insists that the additional revenue from parking, which makes up more than 25% of the its income, will help plug its £5million deficit.

But the motoring organisation the AA is warning local authorities against "aggressive hikes" in car park charges to reclaw income lost because of the pandemic.

It says that as local economies look to bounce back from the lockdown periods, people could be priced out of their town centre and continue shopping online.

The Dover District Council cabinet meeting is from 11am on Monday, February 28, at the Dover District Council headquarters at the White Cliffs Business Park in Whitfield.