Parking charges 'must be cut to help high street recover after Covid'

Parking charges must be cut to help the high street recover after Covid, the British Independent Retailers Association has said after it emerged that councils have raked in almost £900 million profit from fees.

Research by the RAC Foundation found local aurthorities made £891 million from on and off-street parking in the financial year 2019-20, just five per cent lower than the record £934 million the year before.

The vast sum was generated despite the period covering the early part of the Covid pandemic and the first lockdown.

The latest figures come as councils have been making rapidly increasing profits from parking in recent years, with the surplus at £750 million in 2015-16.

The British Independent Retailers Association (Bira) said the figures showed councils continued to make a "huge amount of money"from people visiting town centres.

Andrew Goodacre, the Bira CEO, said: "This is a 'shopping tax', and one that must be reduced if we are to see retailers recover from this awful pandemic. We want customers back on the high street and barriers removed to encourage them to do so. Removing or reducing car parking fees is essential part of the high street recovery."

Research by RAC Foundation showed local authorities received an total income of £1.746 billion from their parking operations in 2019-20.

Meanwhile, the amount that councils spent on running their day-to-day parking operations was £854 million, not including interest payments or depreciation of assets such as car parks.

Any money made from parking activities must be spent on local transport projects.

The study is based on analysis of Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government data. Only 35 of the 338 local authorities that returned figures reported a loss on their parking operations.

Many of the highest profits were seen in London, with Westminster having the largest (£69.6 million) followed by Kensington and Chelsea (£38.8 million) and Camden (£29 million). The biggest amount outside the capital was reported by Brighton and Hove (£24.8 million).

Steve Gooding, the RAC Foundation director, said: "Parking management is quite a money spinner for some local authorities, and nationally it is a big business with total income of more than £1.7 billion. The surplus for 2019-20 is down a little on the year before, which may in part reflect the impact of the first Covid lockdown, which saw traffic levels plummet at the end of last March.

"The dip is likely to be much deeper for the current financial year given the range of restrictions over the past 12 months and the Government's current plea that we should all stay at home if we can."