Fresh hike in car park fees "will kill off shopping in Coventry"

Council-owned car parks in Coventry have put up their prices by 10% this week, forcing drivers to stretch their money even further. The council claims the decision to hike costs was made because of "government cuts" and the necessity to preserve vital services.

This move follows changes made only last year, which required drivers to pay an additional £8.50 and also scrapped the discounted evening and weekend rates in Coventry car parks. Coventry Live readers are concerned at the effect the rises will have on the city centre, they have been having their say in our comments section.

A spokesperson for Coventry City Council has given a statement in justification of the price rise: "The significant financial pressures faced by the city council are caused by inflation and rising demand for some services. Coventry also continues to be severely underfunded, receiving less funding per head than the national average.”

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Commenter Blueblue123 is fed up: “Not even a year after they last raised prices as well!” User Binleyboy says: “The Council don’t want car drivers anywhere near the city centre. All part of the grand scheme to punish car ownership.”

Deleteme agrees: “Well the income from car parking will most likely go down as people use out of town shops even more. So the losses from operating the car parks will increase. How can the council not understand this!” Over on Facebook Ashley Smith thinks this is a good thing: ”They just need to stop cars from driving and parking around the city, it's a nightmare because most car drivers think they can just park their car anywhere these days.”

Frawoo writes: “Easy do not go into the city centre there is plenty of free parking at all the retail parks. Council continues to kill the city centre and use the motorist as an easy target to do it.” Jim Weddell says: “People will refuse to shop in the town centre, they will use the retail parks on the outskirts . The Council will kill off shopping in Coventry, then more empty shops for visitors to our city to see. As the song said 'it's going to be a ghost town.'

Rares Xulescu doesn’t agree that the rises are entirely the fault of the council: “It's the Tory government that's not helping out. This is a cause and effect scenario: the council don't get the right amount of money from the government per population head, so they need to generate revenue somehow or things will get even worse. Inflation affects everyone, I don't understand how people can expect costs/taxes to stay the same."

Reader Terryref is fine with it: “Small rise, but well within car owners' budget.” Pedro1970 can see the benefit of the rise: “The funds raised will go towards the council’s improvement of the city centre.”

What do you think? Will the rise in charges benefit Coventry city centre? Have your say in our comments section.