Minister: there are no plans to hike parking charges

Wednesday 16 November 2016

Infrastructure Minister Eddie Noel has rejected claims he is in favour of an inflation-busting hike on car park charges in the Island, or a new tax on private parking.

Reacting to stories in the media, Deputy Noel says the reports are wrong and he has published a statement clarifying his position.

He said: “I am not considering above inflation increases in car parking charges, nor do we want to introduce a levy on private parking spaces.

“In a response to a scrutiny question about why we think our target of 15% reduction in rush hour congestion will not be achieved, we explained that the target was set before the fiscal measures were removed from our Sustainable Transport Plan. This meant that the tools available to reduce congestion were limited to improvements in bus, cycle and walking. We are working on these, but without a larger cost differential between driving to work and other alternatives, people will not shift behaviour in large enough numbers.

“We already subsidise the bus service by more than £4million per year.

“We did say that it would not be fair to increase public parking charges because two-thirds of spaces in town are private and this would penalise those who do not have access to private spaces, and hit those on lower incomes.

“We mentioned that some towns in the UK have introduced a levy on private spaces but we also said that we would not be pursuing this option.”