Plans for Bristol car park charges approved despite backlash

Drivers will have to pay to park for the first time in ten Bristol suburb car parks despite more than 140 objections about the one in Westbury-on-Trym. Bristol city councillors approved the new fees on Thursday, December 5, just three months after they rejected almost identical proposals.

The new charges at Westbury Hill car park sparked massive opposition because it serves a GP surgery, two churches and many community groups, along with local shops. The transport and connectivity policy committee voted 7-2 to introduce pay and display after Cllr Nicholas Coombes (Lib Dem, Westbury-on-Trym & Henleaze) got cross-party support for an amendment to council officers’ recommendations, to retain one free-hour parking from ticket machines instead of being only available on the RingGo app.

Officers had wanted to scrap that because of misuse from motorists who take multiple tickets to flout the time limit and also write abuse on them. The decision means drivers, after the first free hour, will be charged £1.50 for two hours, £3 for three and £4.50 for four, alongside reserved bays for health centres at £5 per permit.

These will also apply at Beechwood Road in Frome Vale; Callington Road and Repton Road in Brislington; Chalks Road and Derby Street in St George; Ducie Road in Lawrence Hill; Machin Road in Henbury; Stoke View Road in Eastville; and Waverley Road in Shirehampton. The charges were initially proposed by the former Labour administration in February but were deferred by a year in a deal with the Conservatives to approve the annual budget.

However, many people submitted public forum statements to the committee objecting to the plans. Former ward councillor and Tory candidate for West of England metro mayor Steve Smith told the meeting: “This is simple – you’ve already made this decision.

“At your September meeting you rejected this proposal, including the free hour. There is no reason not to reject it again.

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“All that’s changed here is the insistence that everybody uses RingGo to get their free hour’s parking, and you can see from the public statements that there are many people who simply cannot and will not use that, and you are excluding them if you allow all this to go through. You’ve seen in the public forum statements the damage this will do to community groups, residential streets, places of worship, the GP surgery but most of all to local shops.

“It would be a slap in the face to hardworking people running small businesses and independent shops to pass this measure now having already rejected it three months ago. Please don’t do it.” Churchgoers also objected to parking fees being introduced on Sundays.

Ward Cllr Caroline Gooch (Lib Dem, Westbury-on-Trym & Henleaze) told the committee that parking on the street was already a “nightmare” and this would make the problems worse. She said: “There is free parking at Cribbs nearby so you’re going to drive business away.

“On top of that, you want people to pay to go to the doctors or you give an hour free but if it takes longer than that, they will have to pay.” Cllr Gooch said forcing people to use the RingGo app to pay for parking discriminated against older people.

Westbury-on-Trym Society chairman Andrew Renshaw said: “The last thing retailers and community organisers in the centres affected need is parking charges encouraging people to go elsewhere. The argument that you can encourage modal change on Sundays fails to connect with reality.

“It will ensure that all available on-street spaces are used up first. Any marginal benefit and sustainable transport use will be undone by the economic and social damage that the many objectors have highlighted.”

Committee member Cllr Graham Morris (Conservative, Stockwood) said: “I am unhappy with the proposals because we want to keep our shopping centres active, and to introduce charges will be a further nail in the coffin of those, particularly in areas that have a very high proportion of elderly people.” Director of management of place Patsy Mellor said: “We do know it’s controversial.

“Unfortunately the decision was made to charge in these car parks [at cabinet] and the reason it has to come back is that we have got to maintain these car parks and the budget has already been removed, so if we don’t do this we have to find the money from somewhere else.” In a separate decision, the committee voted 8-1 to withdraw free 30-minute parking in residents’ parking zones from ticket machines and make them available only from RingGo because of motorists’ abuse of the scheme.