Car Park Charges set to rise

On Jan 31st the Conservative-run Brentwood Council Environment Panel approved the following inflation busting charge increases:

Surface Car Parks , Multi-Storey & On-Street Pay & Display: rises averaging over 6% (2 hrs up from £1.30 to £1.40 - 7.7%)

Brentwood is again treated unfairly - in Brentwood the maximum free parking on-street is 30 minutes compared to two hrs in Shenfield.....so Brentwood's shoppers are paying for Shenfield's Free Parking!

Sunday Parking Charges to hit motorists on their day of leisure (like the Country Parks). The William Hunter Car Park & Multi-Storey will no longer be free on Sunday, but cost 30p an hour. Lib Dem Cllr Charles Myers asked if any thought had been given to checking if Parking Attendants would enforce on-street parking restrictions if car drivers started using local roads instead. The answer was that this was an 'experiment' to see what would happen.

Residents Parking Permits to rise to £77?

Highways Officers have estimated that it costs the Council £77 a year (for each permit) to run these schemes. The current charge is £22, and it is proposed to increase this to £23.20 (up 5.5%) from April. However, the whole scheme will be 'reviewed' in the coming year. Cllr Barry Aspinell objected to this rise. He said "when we were in control the cost was only £12, and the extra costs were met from fines paid by infringements".