Ways to get cheaper parking in Cornwall will be made clearer

It's been one of the biggest talking points in Cornwall over the past few months – the changes to Cornwall Council's car parking tariffs, which have seen some dramatic price hikes across the Duchy.

The topic came under scrutiny again at a Cornwall Council meeting yesterday (Tuesday, July 11) when Connor Donnithorne, the Conservative-led council's portfolio holder for transport, was asked for his response to the public reaction to the changes, which have seen the creation of petitions calling for the tariffs to go back to their original prices and angry comment by business leaders on the possible impact on trade.

During a meeting of the council's economic growth scrutiny committee in Truro, Cllr Mike Thomas (Independent, Helston North) said: "The public response to the change in car parking charges … I haven't seen an overwhelming number pleased with it; you're unlikely to get people pleased with an increase in charges, but there have been a number of people quite shocked. One I noted had spent nothing to go to a show at the Hall for Cornwall in the past and ended up with a £10 charge."

He was referring to a tweet I posted at the weekend after attending an afternoon show by Jason Thomas Performing Arts, featuring my daughters, at the Hall for Cornwall on Sunday. After watching the almost three-hour long show and then having to wait to collect my daughters, the price for parking in the nearby Garras Wharf car park was £10. Before the tariff changes came into operation at the end of May that stay would have been free.

An usher who volunteers at the theatre responded to my tweet that she was working at the same show and was also charged £10. She said: "That's it for me. I can't afford to give up my time and pay that sort of parking charge."

Cllr Thomas asked Cllr Donnithorne: "Have you come up with any positive or negative responses to the really serious change to the parking charges in Cornwall?"

The head of transport replied: "Changes to parking are always very contentious and we'll keep it monitored as we go forward. The example you gave about going to see a show – if you're going to see an evening show, which most of them are, you pay a £2 fixed rate which was one of the changes I made from the hourly tariff which would have gone up into the £5, £6, £7 margin.

"There were around 1,400 responses to the parking consultation – the main areas of concern that I picked up on were reflected in the changes that we made; cutting the JustPark multi-use session ticket discounts even further from £5 in a Zone A car park all day to £2.50 and cheaper charges for Zones B and C car parks."

He added that one of his aims was to make motorists in Cornwall more aware of the multi-use tickets which provide parking sessions in selected long-stay car parks at a reduced rate. The tickets can save you money if you regularly commute or regularly use a specific car park but don't park every day of the week. Each parking session runs for 24 hours on whichever day it's required.

Cllr Donnithorne said there were some changes coming to that system which could save drivers more money. "I've always made it clear I want this to be evidence and data-led and we'll keep this under constant review, but one of the things I've picked up on is that the multi-use session tickets – which are really useful as a way of passing on discounts – are for selected long-stay car parks.

"We are very close to being able to put that back to being a zonal approach, so you can buy them for all Zone A car parks, Zone B car parks and Zone C car parks. So if you go to Gylly Beach on the weekend and then to one of the Truro car parks and then to one of the Zone A car parks in Falmouth you can draw down your bundle tickets rather than having to select each car park individually. I think that will make another significant benefit to residents."

Cllr Thomas questioned how easy it was for people to get the 'bundled tickets', adding: "When I talk to people they've never heard of them."

Cllr Donnithorne admitted the multi-use tickets, which are available on the JustPark app, are poorly advertised "because before these changes they were causing huge financial losses for the parking service. I want there to be a very good comms strategy on that, which the team is working on, as well as making the JustPark technology easier to use."

He added that recent data showed that use of car parks where there had been tariff changes hadn't dropped as many expected and in some cases use had increased.

"Some of the benchmark car parks, specifically where there was a heightened local concern, have seen usage figures consistent if not up compared to previous years. Obviously, there are a lot of different factors for that but in those car parks it is showing that an increase in parking charges hasn't led to the consequence that a lot of people thought."

However, Cllr Thomas noted: "This is early days and the people coming in are mainly tourists at this stage – it will be interesting to see how this is reflected in the future in terms of the use of the car parks."

Cllr Donnithorne pointed out that tariffs would decrease in many council-run car parks out of season. "The vast majority of car parks are dropping a least one band in the winter, so local people pay cheaper rates from November 1. Most of our Zone A car parks now will drop down to Zone B car parks and that will mean that evening charges will also change to cheaper tariffs."

Peter Channon, Conservative councillor for Hayle West, asked him if it was correct that the parking service used to run at a loss.

"On average over the last six or seven years the parking budget has seen a shortfall of about £1.5m," replied Cllr Donnithorne. "That has been plugged from highways maintenance and other areas of maintenance spend, which is one of the reasons why we are seeing problems on our road network. With these parking charge changes, although receiving criticism in the public domain, it's critical that we get on top of that budget shortfall so we don't continue to pass on £1.5m shortfall every year which gets plugged by essential road maintenance which keeps us all safe."

He said after the meeting: "I'm listening every day to local residents and businesses on how we can make the parking system easier and more efficient in Cornwall. I want to make it easier for local people to benefit from the massively reduced parking charges accessible via multi-use session tickets. We are designing a system where residents will be able to use their multi-session tickets for any car park within a zone rather than selected car parks only.

"This means it will be easier for residents to access the significant discounts and pay: Zone A 24 hours £2.50, not £10, Zone B 24 hours £2, not £6 and Zone C 24 hours £1.75, not £3.50."

The meeting also heard that the council is phasing out the ability to pay for parking sessions by cash at machines in its car parks.