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A council set to hike parking fees says it needs the income to fill a budget black hole.
The proposal sees an average rise of 15% in charges at off-street car parks across Maidstone and the scrapping of freebies for drivers of all-electric vehicles.
The biggest fee jump would be at Mote Park, where the cost of a six-hour stay - the shortest option available - would jump by 50% from £2 to £3.
But while borough councillors expressed their desire to help traders in the town by keeping charges low, they said they were in desperate need of the income.
Currently, Maidstone’s parking fees are among the cheapest in the county and have not increased for five years despite significant inflation.
The plans were outlined by cabinet member for corporate resources Cllr Kathy Cox (Green and Independent Alliance) at an advisory committee last week.
They aim to earn the council an extra £500,000 in parking income, bringing the annual total to an estimated £3.975 million.
Cllr Cox said it was important the council did what it could to help alleviate pressures on its budget.
She said fees from discretionary charges - which also include things like crematorium charges, some waste collections and legal services - provided around £11m of income a year, which was a significant contribution towards the council’s budget of around £50m.
She said that while general inflation was expected to be around 2.1% next year, the council was facing inflation of around 4% because a high proportion of its costs were skewed toward staffing, and that wages were rising more rapidly.
Any increases to parking fees will have to be agreed as part of the council’s budget proposals in the new year and will not come into effect until April 1, 2025.
The proposals would see the charges at the short-stay Medway Street car park rise from £1.30 for one hour to £1.50, while the fee for four hours would rise by 80p from £5.20 to £6.
Fees at the College Road car park would rise from £1.05 for one hour to £1.20, and from £7.30 for more than five hours to £8.40.
In another large shift in policy, the free parking concession for battery and electric vehicles would be abolished, and they would new be obliged to pay the full price.
However, there would be no change in the fees for on-street pay and display locations or in the cost of residents’ permits.
That pleased Cllr Hilary Jenkins-Baldock (Lab), who described residents’ parking permits as “a tax on people with smaller homes.”
She said: “People with larger homes and their own driveway, don’t have to pay for parking. It’s those who live in smaller homes that are effectively penalised for doing so.”
The one reduction in fees Cllr Cox proposed was for the annual evening (off-peak) season tickets, which would reduce from £180 to £90 - a 50% drop.
She said that would benefit residents who lived in the town centre and had to park in council car parks overnight.
The increases were broadly welcomed by members of the climate transition, corporate and environmental services policy advisory committee.
Cllr Fay Gooch (Ind and Fant and Oakwood) said: “I’m not saying we are really enjoying this (increase) and partying over it. But it is the reality of the situation.
“People have got to be prepared to pay. They would pay to go on holiday. They would pay to get a bigger telly.
“At the end of the day, we need the income.
“If we don’t charge people more to park, we are going to have to put council tax up.”
A decision on how much that will be is expected in January.
The sole voice against the parking increases came from Cllr Stan Forecast (Con), who was the only member to vote against the proposal.
He told Cllr Cox he didn’t envy her the job of trying to balance the budget with the present constraints on local government finances, but voiced his fears that the fees would have a detrimental effect on the town centre.
He said: “I am deeply concerned that these increases will continue to deter people from the high street.”
Cllr Cox told him: “The one thing we can’t get away from is that the prices have not increased for five years.
“We have had inflationary pressures and at some point it is right to recognise that for all of our residents, whether they park or not.”
Cllr Gooch agreed, saying: “I wish we could do more to help retailers, but we’ve got our own set of problems -our own budget - to sort out.”
In using parking fees as a method to generate income, Maidstone is only repeating what many other councils have done.
In August, Tonbridge and Malling council put up charges at 34 car parks across the area.
It also started charging for Sunday parking for the first time in a move that drew widespread criticism and protests.
The increases were despite the council already making £1.1m profit from its parking operations.
Canterbury City Council already introduced one big hike in parking fees in April of this year and is now looking at increasing them again, with some car parks looking at a 41% hike in fees to £3.80 an hour.
The authority – which generates more than twice as much money from parking as any other authority in Kent – was accused of “milking the cow until it’s dry”.
Since the last increase in April, Canterbury has increased its parking income by 10%, but the number of motorists using the car parks has fallen by 1.7%.
According to research carried out by KentOnline in May this year, Canterbury already had the most expensive car parking fees in the county.
Thanet and Folkestone and Hythe were close behind. Maidstone was well down the list in 11th place, with only Ashford and Dartford charging less.
