Changes to car parking charges from 31 October 2022

Small increases in charges for Shropshire Council’s car parks and on-street parking areas come into effect on Monday 31 October 2022. 

Under the plans – approved by the council’s Cabinet in July 2022 following a public consultation – the majority of charges in Shropshire Council-run car parks are set to rise by between 10p and 20p per hour, with many car parks remaining free of charge.  

The planned fees were approved by Cabinet and full Council in February 2022 as part of the proposed fees and charges to be applied by Shropshire Council in 2022/23. The required statutory consultation has now been completed, with eight objections received. 

There are seven bands of car parks and on-street parking areas managed by Shropshire Council, with bands 1 to 6 currently being chargeable, and band 7 being free. 

The new pricing levels for each band are show below. 

Hourly charges by car park band 

Band 1 – £2.80
Band 2 – £2.00
Band 3 – £1.20
Band 4 – 80p
Band 5 – 60p
Band 6 – 40p 

Richard Marshall, Shropshire Council’s Cabinet member for highways and regulatory services, said:- 

“Due to an increase in the rate of inflation and the cost of managing and maintaining our car parks and on-street parking areas, there will be small increases to some of our parking charges. 

“We do appreciate that people are facing financial pressures at the moment, and we have sought to reduce the increases as much as possible. However, to not increase charges at all would mean having to cut other essential services that the council provides. 

“This will be the first increase in parking charges since the existing fees were introduced more than three years ago, and many other councils have raised charges annually in the same time period. 

“The current charges were introduced between November 2018 and February 2019. In that time inflation has risen significantly, as have operational costs, but the council is receiving the same level of parking income – and can no longer continue to subsidise the maintenance and operation of car parks from other budgets. 

“However, even with these changes, many car parks will continue to be free, and many will cost just 40p an hour. And even with a small increase, our prices will continue to compare favourably with many other parts of the country.” 

By law, any surplus money Shropshire Council receives from car parking over and above the cost of providing and administering it must be used for the benefit of road users. 

Any surplus generated from these proposals would be put towards improvements to car parks and any further surplus money would be used to fund public transport services, road improvements projects and environmental improvement. 

Meanwhile. a proposed – separate – review of Shropshire Council’s Parking Strategy was discussed by councillors on the Place Overview Committee on 29 September 2022, and will now be considered by Cabinet. 

Further information

• • • A full list of car parks and on-street areas within each band allocation is shown in appendix 1 of the July Cabinet report and full details of proposed increases for weekly tickets, season tickets and concessions for each carpark are shown in appendix 2.
    • The proposed level of fees and charges to be applied by Shropshire Council in 2022/23 was approved by Cabinet on 16 February 2022 and subsequently by Full Council on 24 February 2022 and included increases to all parking fees for on and off-street parking across the county.
    • Any variation of charges for car parking are required to be laid down in a Traffic Regulation Order (TRO) before they can be implemented. Before making such an order statutory consultation must be undertaken and due consideration given to any objections received. The required statutory consultation was undertaken between 24 March and 20 May 2022. A total of 18 comments were received during the consultation and included one comment in support of the proposals and eight objections. 
    • The Falcon’s Court Car Park in Much Wenlock will be a Band 6 Car Park as it is currently, and not a Band 5 Car Park. A modification order was advertised during the public consultation.

  In addition to the linear hourly charges, specified car parks also offer:-

  Discounted weekly tickets
  3-monthly, 6-monthly and 12-monthly season tickets
  Residents’ parking permits
  Tariffs for HGV parking
  Free coach parking