Evening charges to be applied to Sidmouth car parks

East Devon District Council have agreed to introduce evening charges in The Ham East and West and the Roxburgh car park in Sidmouth.

The Car Parking Task and Finish Forum, when they met on Tuesday morning, backed proposals from officers to introduce a nominal £1 fee for an evening parking charge between 8pm and 6am at car parks in seven towns in East Devon.

The plan is to introduce an evening parking charge – initially at a flat rate of just £1 – to make a proportionate contribution to management, enforcement and wear and tear costs associated with the car parks.

The council's service lead for car parks, Andrew Ennis, said the short stay car parking tariff currently allows members of the public to park free of charge between 8pm and 6am, but that they know that the evening period can be busy.

He said that again there were historical reasons why the council doesn't make a charge, but that any new charges would have to be modest so that the council doesn't 'look greedy' or drive people into parking for nothing in residents streets.

He added: "The nominal charge would cover the upkeep. £1 won't be disproportionate to the benefits, but there is always the risk it is seen as a tax on businesses."

Cllr Rylance said that from an environment point of view, having in the back of your mind that you have to pay a token sum to park is a good place to be, while Cllr Davey said that the £1 fee was not a lot to ask and could generate useful income, and that if trialled for a year, it could be reviewed to see if had worked.

But Cllr Maddy Chapman called the decision to be deferred until the pandemic was over. She said: "We will then see how many businesses have actually managed to survive, and putting the car parks charges up won't help."

The forum voted by five votes to one, with one abstention, for the trial of £1 evening parking charges in the affected car parks.

They are the Lace Walk short stay car park in Honiton, West Street short stay car park in Axminster, Orchard car park in Seaton, Central car park in Beer, Mill Street, the Ham East and West and the Roxburgh car park in Sidmouth, Rolle Mews car park in Budleigh Salterton and the London Inn car park, Imperial Road car park and Exmouth Pavilion car park in Exmouth.

But the forum voted against making any immediate decisions over the future of several 'loss making' car parks in the district, which either generate no income or less than their costs.

They called for the full details around costs for each of the 15 car parks to be brought back to them at a future meeting so that they could examine each car park on its own merits before deciding whether to introduce car parking charges, or offer the management of the facilities to parish councils if they wished to keep the car parks free.