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by admin on 8 November, 2017
On Tuesday, the County Council‘s Highways & Community Infrastructure committee will be considering proposals for changes to parking charges in the city, including residents’ parking permit fees as well as on-street and Park & Ride parking charges.
Some of the proposals are good news, like the removal of Park & Ride parking charges, charges that we have opposed since they were first introduced in 2013. The charges have driven motorists away from the Park & Ride sites and into residential streets, which are already choc-a-bloc full of commuter cars.
The rise in residents’ parking permits and on-street parking charges is not such good news. One element that my party has opposed is the very steep 88% price hike for visitor permits – almost double. We believe this is not only disproportionate but very unfair on people who regularly have visitors during the day, such as the housebound. There are lower rises for residents’ permits … happily no rise for the new Morley scheme in Queen Edith’s that is just being introduced.
I am a member of the Highways committee and welcome your comments, which I will feed into my comments at the committee.
Please note that the charges have already been considered by the city-county councils’ joint traffic committee, where I and other Liberal Democrat members challenged the level of the rise in visitor permit costs, which we believe is over the top. We were disappointed – and not a little surprised – that our Labour colleagues defended this.
You can read the report at https://cmis.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/…/Com…/7/Default.aspx. The meeting is open to the public; if you wish to speak, you need to notify the County Council by noon on Thursday.
3 Comments
Dear Amanda, I completely support your objection to the increase in visitors permits. My mother is housebound and pays for carers to visit four times a day. If she lived in a residents parking area she would have to bear these additional costs. Are there no exemptions for the elderly or disabled – sometimes visits are responding to an emergency which should also be exempt.
Kind regards
Helen McGhee
Hi Helen, thank you for your comment. You rightly highlight the plight of people who are housebound. The County Council does offer free permits that can be used for medical visits – please see https://www.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/residents/travel-roads-and-parking/parking-permits-and-fines/parking/residents-parking-in-cambridge/. However, that won’t cover everything, and social visits are very important if older people are not to become isolated.
I’m pleased to report that the County Council Highways Committee did not vote through the new £15 visitor permit charge today, as recommended by the officers, but instead asked the officers to look again at the charging structure, particularly ways in which the charges could remain affordable by people depending on family visits.
Here is the Cambridge News report of the meeting: http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/cambridge-news/parking-permit-charge-fee-increase-13901885.
I very much hope we will see more palatable proposals when we look at this again in January.