Agenda item - Parking Services Phase 1 Project Report

To consider a report of the Portfolio Holder for Highways, Travel and Environment.

Decision

(a) That as part of managing traffic effectively the Cabinet supported the following changes to parking charges/charging hours:

(i) increasing the all day charge from £2 to £8 in Lyme Regis and West Bay

(ii) extending morning charges in Purbeck to begin from 8:00am

(iii) implementation of Sunday charging except that at the request of the relevant Town or Parish Council, Dorset Council would consider the case for suspending car park charging on a Sunday to enable a local event to be held. In such cases agreement to suspend would be at the sole discretion of Dorset Council and each individual case would be considered on its merits. These provisions would apply only in exceptional cases and on a limited number of occasions in a year.

(b) That changes are introduced at the earliest opportunity and

(c) That the Portfolio holder for Highways, Travel and Environment, after consultation with the Director of Place, be given delegated authority to decide on the further process to be followed and be given authority to take any and all further decisions and steps necessary to introduce the parking changes supported by the Cabinet.

Reason for Recommendation:

A. The current charge has not been reviewed since 2014; hence the charge has not risen with inflation and does not meet the current costs. The areas are tourist destinations; therefore, the impact of the charge will primarily be on tourists and not on Dorset Council residents. There are car parks in the area that charge per hour, thus parking can be achieved locally at a lower cost for those not wanting to pay an all-day rate.

B. Purbeck is the only part of Dorset Council that parking charges current start at 10am, this is inequitable and there is no indication of a need for charges to start later in this area. The 10am charging period appears to be the legacy of an assumption that locals in Purbeck shop early in the morning before tourists arrive, but this could be true of other popular tourist destination areas and therefore now needs to align with all car parking in Dorset area.

C. Introducing Sunday charging across the Dorset Council area brings parity and consistency. Further research and impact analysis will be undertaken in phase 2 of the transformation project.

The Portfolio Holder for Highways, Travel and Environment presented a report that set proposed changes to parking charges across the Dorset area. The Place and Resources Scrutiny Committee had considered the report at their meeting on 1 December 2020. In light of their comments the Portfolio Holder proposed the following amendment to the reports recommendation:-

(a) That the all-day change in Lyme Regis and West Bay be increased from £2 to £8 (instead of £4) which was inline with other car parks in the Dorset Area.

(b) extending morning charges in Purbeck to begin from 8:00am

(c) implementation of Sunday charging except that at the request of the relevant Town or Parish Council, Dorset Council would consider the case for suspending car park charging on a Sunday to enable a local event to be held. In such cases agreement to suspend would be at the sole discretion of Dorset Council and each individual case would be considered on its merits. These provisions would apply only in exceptional cases and on a limited number of occasions in a year.

(d) That extending evening charges as set out in (d) of the reports recommendation, be deferred to Phase 2 of the transformation project.

The Chairman of the Place & Resources Scrutiny Committee advised that members had considered the report in detail and the amendments put forward by the Portfolio Holder were largely in accordance with the committee’s comments.

In respect of the Dorchester Market and the Sunday Car Boot sales, it was confirmed that further discussions would take place with the appropriate portfolio holder(s), officers of the Council, Chairman and Vice-Chairman of the Dorchester Markets Joint Informal Panel outside of this meeting.

Before taking the vote, the Corporate Director for Legal and Democratic advised that any changes to parking charges needed to be grounded in traffic management principles and therefore suggested that the amendment be prefaced with “That as part of managing traffic effectively the Cabinet supported the following changes to parking charges/charging hours:” This addition was accepted.

The amendment was seconded by Cllr T Ferrari and on being put to the vote the motion was carried.