Fears overnight parking charges will hurt city centre
There are fears Gloucester’s night time economy will suffer if plans to introduce overnight parking charges are taken forward.
Gloucester City Council is conducting a review of its car parks.
Finance chiefs say there are a number of council car parks that need investment including the installation of electric vehicle charge points to a level that would benefit Gloucester.
And a report due before the overview and scrutiny committee next week also says there is no provision for evening charges in their car parks apart from Southgate Moorings.
With the Forum and Kings Quarter now nearing completion, the report says the implementation of evening charges would mean that additional income could be used to make the car parks more hospitable.
But Councillor Pam Tracey (C, Westgate) spoke passionately against the proposals at Thursday night’s budget meeting and said the evening charges would put people off going out in the city.
“I’m very disappointed we are raising the parking fees again for this city,” she said.
“We try to attract people into this city. It’s a job now in the daytime to get them into this city.
“Because wherever they go for meetings now they have got to dive out and put some more money into the parking meters.
“A lot of people are saying we are not going to bother coming to this city.
“I drove around the car parks and some of them were quite empty.
“But to have the audacity to think about putting the charges up in the evening… when we need to get footfall into this city.
“I just can’t believe it. We’ve got to keep these shops, restaurants, the Fountain Inn and everything else on the crossroads.
“We’ve got a university where they probably go to Cheltenham for their nightclubbing.
“Why put the charges on in the evening too? It’s terrible.
“People who want to go to the Guildhall, are they going to come and park in this city for the night? I don’t think so.”
She said “enough was enough” and asked for the evening parking fee for the evening to be taken out of the plans.
“I’d rather you reduce it for the daytime in this city,” she said.
“This parking… we might as well build a wall around this city and close it off.”
Councillors will scrutinise the proposals at the overview and scrutiny committee meeting on March 2.