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26
Feb
New parking charges revealed after U-turn
North Yorkshire Council has unveiled fresh parking charges from April 1 after previous proposals were withdrawn in the face of a furious backlash.
Last week the Conservative authority announced a ‘tariff rebalancing’, exercise, which would have seen some tariffs increase by more than 300%.
The council also intended to introduce evening and weekend parking charges where they do not currently exist.
Businesses and councillors in Ripon, Harrogate and Knaresborough said the proposals would devastate nighttime economies and unfairly penalise motorists.
The council performed a U-turn on the proposals yesterday and issued new ones today.
Steve Brown, the council’s head of parking services, said in his revised report that all on-street and off-street parking charges will go up by 10%, rounded up to the nearest 10p.
Therefore, for example, a £1.20 tariff will become £1.40 with the 10% increase (12p) being rounded up to 20p.
Mr Brown said the increase will “cater for inflationary cost increases into 2027 and is also in recognition of the significant investment that the council is making in terms of improvements to car parking facilities”.
The 10% uplift will also apply to permits and scratch cards in a move expected to generate an extra £1.9 million in 2026/27.
He added:
This is less than is needed to meet the savings included in the medium-term financial strategy. The two years of the medium-term financial strategy covering 25/26 and 26/27 includes savings from increased parking income totalling £5.513m.
£1.95m was achieved in 25/26; with the addition of the £1.9m to be achieved through the 10% tariff increase in 26/27, a total increase of £3.85m will be achieved across the two years. There will therefore be a shortfall in income of £1.663m in 26/27 compared to the agreed budget.
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