Councillor defends Shropshire parking fees and fines
Parking enforcement policies in Shropshire are not being used as a cash cow – but are an essential part of keeping roads safe.
That is the view of Councillor Peter Adams, deputy cabinet member with responsibility for parking at Shropshire Council, who said money made from parking fees, fines and penalties in the county are reinvested back into transport services.
He insisted the authority was not expecting the amount of money brought in via parking policies to increase at all over the next few years.
And he pointed to cheap parking initiatives in towns like Ludlow and Shrewsbury which have been brought in recent months to entice more people to visit town centres as a way the authority was trying to encourage shoppers to spend cash without being stung by fines and charges.
It comes after figures from the RAC Foundation showed the authority made £2.6 million from parking in 2011/12.
Councils across England have a total current surplus of £565 million from their parking services in 2011/12. It represents a £54 million increase on the £511 million surplus in 2010/11, said the foundation.
Councillor Adams said: "The aim of parking enforcement is not to make money but to ensure our streets and car parks are not blocked by vehicles parking wherever they like, to make sure they are safe for pedestrians and drivers.
"In contrast to the national averages, we are not expecting our income from parking to increase over the coming years because we are already doing a lot to encourage people to visit our town centres.
"Our parking enforcement officers have been trained to be reasonable and not over-zealous and we already have a free grace period of 15 minutes on council-run car parks and on-street parking bays, suggested by Eric Pickles.
"We did not have any surplus income from parking fines last year and the vast majority of any surplus from parking charges is reinvested into the transport system, future maintenance of car parks, roads and park and ride bus services.
"Parking charges have not increased since 2011 and we operate 40 free car parks as well as a wide number of free limited waiting bays for people to park for short visits to town centre businesses and shops. We also run a number of promotions to encourage people to visit town centres, such as the Super Sundays event which provides cheap parking in Ludlow and Shrewsbury."
