Cheers as parking charges are vetoed
PLANS to introduce parking charges in Bollington, Poynton, Prestbury and other towns which are currently free in Cheshire East have been scrapped.
Applause and cheers came from the public gallery at Macclesfield Town Hall as members of the highways and transport committee voted against the proposal going out to public consultation.
Speaking after the decision, Councillor Mike Hunter, from Middlewich ward, who voted against the new charging proposals, said: “It is dead in the water.
“It does present us with problems down the line budget wise - we have got to find £1m - but, at the end of the day, as you can tell from the people that were in this hall and the amount of people that were against these parking charges, it’s a victory for residents and that’s what matters.”
At the meeting it was asked why the council had not done the review on a town by town basis instead of proposing a standardised charge across the borough.
Handforth, Holmes Chapel, Middlewich, Sandbach and Alsager were the other places that the proposals covered.
Councillor Don Stockton said: “Parking isn’t just about car parking charges, it’s about the vitality of the towns, it’s about the fact that when people try and avoid car parking charges they’ll just go and park on the street outside someone’s house and the residents will get upset.”
He was applauded by the public when he said he couldn’t support what was proposed and that each car park and each town should be considered on its own merit.
At the beginning of the meeting, several members of the public had addressed the committee and some had used a similar argument.
Committee chair Coun
Craig Browne told the meeting there was a cost to providing car parks and ‘those who use the service should be the ones who pay for it’.
In Macclesfield - as well as Crewe, Nantwich, Knutsford and Wilmslow - drivers have paid for years to park.
This has led to the feeling free areas are essentially being subsidised.
The recommendations, which had been put forward by the Labour/Independent administration, would have seen all towns and villages pay the same rate on paid-for councilowned car parks.
A zonal charging scheme would have been introduced.
All those proposals have now been scrapped.
Cheshire East now faces another headache.
It had banked on the extra charges bringing in more than £1 million.
That now won’t happen.