Dudley Council finance chief goes into reverse on new parking charges
Dudley Council has gone into reverse over its controversial policy of introducing parking charges for the first two hours.
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The authority had planned to bring in a flat £2 charge for the first hour on all of its car parks but a meeting of the council’s cabinet on August 8 was told charges were being lowered.
Dudley cabinet member for finance, Councillor Steve Clark, told the meeting charges will now vary depending on where the car park is and will start at £1.20 and rise to £1.60 or £1.80 at different locations.
Councillor Clark revealed the changes following recommendations from the council’s environment scrutiny committee. He said: “We have taken on board what they said, now they are divided into certain areas.
“I think £2 was too much, bringing car parking charges in initially was not something we wanted to do but we had to do it.
“We are trying to make the best of the savings and make sure we are still a council that is looking forward with big ambitions but trying to work within our own means.
“This is one thing we have reluctantly had to do, like green waste charges – we didn’t want to do it but unfortunately we had to.”
He was responding to comments from Councillor Shaun Keasey who said: “My concern is this is going to be a huge effect on traders in Dudley, potentially in Halesowen and Stourbridge with these car parking charges.
“When do we get to a point when the council becomes not fit for purpose because we are cutting and cutting?
“When you are running a business there is a baseline when you cannot safely run that business, are we in any danger of becoming a council that is so hollowed out that we cannot deliver services and we cannot be aspirational?”
Council leader, Councillor Patrick Harley, said: “We need to get the balance right between reducing spending and bringing in revenue.
“We should trust officers to make decisions that save the authority money, not cuts or reductions in service levels but savings that have a minimum if any impact at all.”
The new charges are set to be introduced in October as the first phase of a longer-term parking strategy for the borough.
