Bishop’s Stortford parking charges to rise by up to 54% to discourage long stays in short-stay car parks
Parking tariffs in Bishop’s Stortford will rise by up to 54% from April to discourage long stays in short-stay car parks.
East Herts Council (EHC) leaders hope their plan will coax town centre workers and train commuters, who park all day, out of shopper spaces and into the Northgate End multi-storey, which people are “frightened” of using.
Motorists face paying £6.50 to park from 7.30am to 8pm at the 86-space Apton Road and 71-space Basbow Lane car parks – a 25% increase from £5.20. A stay of up to five hours at the 47-space Elm Road car park will cost £3.70 – a 54% rise from £2.40 – with the all-day tariff rising 17% from £3.60 to £4.20. Rises at all other EHC car parks across the district, except one, will rise by 6.7%, as agreed by the previous Conservative administration.
But long-stay prices at the 573-space Northgate End in Link Road are coming down by between 8.6% and 19.2%: from £3.50 to £3.20 for up to four hours, from £4.30 to £3.70 for up to five hours and from £5.20 to £4.20 all day (7am-11pm).
An EHC report reads: “Currently, Bishop’s Stortford’s car parks are often full before 9am with long-stay parkers, which means that shoppers arriving afterwards drive between car parks while searching to find a space. This generates unnecessary traffic movements, increases congestion, adds to air pollution and makes Bishop’s Stortford town centre a less appealing place to visit.”
Speaking at a meeting of the full council on Wednesday (December 13), deputy leader Cllr Mione Goldspink (Lib Dem, Bishop’s Stortford North) said she supported the plan in response to retail sector requests for cheaper spaces at Northgate End. But she said the council must take “urgent action to vastly improve the stairwells, lighting, disabled access and general security of the car park” before the new prices come in.
“Sadly, it is not a user-friendly car park,” Cllr Goldspink said. “Many people are scared and frightened of using it, and the council frankly is losing money on it.”
She said that “very many calculations have been done” to make sure the authority could afford to bump down long-stay fees at the multi-storey.
EHC could rake in an extra £170,250 a year if prices rise and drivers do not change their parking patterns, according to a report by the Green and Liberal Democrat administration.
The overall tariff changes are designed to account for 6.7% inflation – the rise in the cost of a “basket” of goods and services in the year to September 2023.
“That £170,000 comes out of the pockets of town centre workers, residents who use some of these car parks, businesses etc,” said Cllr David Jacobs (Lab, Bishop’s Stortford Central).
“Those residents are facing a cost-of-living crisis, increases in their council tax and inflation that was over 10%, and we’re now telling them their car parking has to go up by 25% to 54%? Surely that can’t be right.”
Cllr Jacobs added that without safety improvements, it would be “entirely wrong” to ask people to park at Northgate End.
Cllr John Wyllie (Con, Bishop’s Stortford Thorley Manor) tabled a motion to lower parking prices in October, which the administration voted down.
Responding to the new proposals, he said: “This plan ticks boxes, squiggles boxes and tears the paper up.
“I do like the new pricing for Northgate End. I don’t have a problem with the [inflationary] increase, but I do have a problem when we’re putting up Apton Road by 25% at some points, Basbow Lane by 25%, Elm Road by 54%. With those increases, I just could not support this document.
“For retail workers, many of whom start before seven o’clock in the morning, Northgate End doesn’t open until 7am, so it’s not actually going to benefit anybody who starts at five o’clock to bake things or do whatever they want to do at 5am in Bishop’s Stortford.”
The Bishop’s Stortford Business Improvement District (BID) had previously spoken out against the plans. In a statement, the organisation warned the proposals risked “crippling” businesses during a “challenging time”.
Cllr Tim Hoskin (Green, Hertford Heath and Brickendon), EHC’s executive member for environmental sustainability, told his colleagues: "Differential pricing is a crude instrument. It’s not cause-and-effect. It’s going to influence, but it’s not ‘pull this lever and watch exactly what happens’. We are able to watch and monitor and see what effect it has.
“It has to be part of a longer scheme about how we resolve parking – not just in Bishop’s Stortford, not just in East Herts, but across our reliance on driving and having to park everywhere, while it is essential in some instances.”
Cllr Hoskin said Bishop’s Stortford BID’s requests for a set of cheaper car parking spaces “centred” the authority’s thinking about how to co-ordinate town centre parking.
He admitted Northgate End car park “looks like a garrison” with heavy doors and dimly lit stairwells, which he said “looks fixable”. Opening times “could be consulted on”, he added.
Councillors voted 25-5, with 12 abstentions, to introduce the new charges from April 1, 2024.