Parking charges to be reintroduced in the Dales
Charges will be reintroduced in Derbyshire Dales District Council’s pay and display car parks this weekend following the Government’s decision to relax coronavirus travel restrictions.
The District Council suspended charges at the start of the lockdown to help local residents to make any essential journeys during the early stages of the crisis.
Charges will apply again from this Saturday after the authority revealed it has lost around £375,000 in car parking revenues since suspending charges at the end of March. But Dales residents can continue to park for free 19 hours every day using their resident parking permit.
A Council spokesperson said: “Suspending charges was a step we wanted to take to help our residents in the first months of the crisis, but the Government’s decision to effectively open up the Dales to day trippers means we have to re-impose controls on our car parks, particularly the short stay car parks in our busy town centres.
“While we are currently appealing to anyone contemplating a trip to the Derbyshire Dales to think twice because of the potential impact on our communities and reduced local services, we have to accept that, like it or not, some people will travel. Indeed some of our car parks have been at capacity over the past two days.
“We hope that residents will understand that while we have done our best to support their essential journeys by making parking free during the lockdown to date, the resulting loss of income will have long term impacts on the Council’s finances and our ability to sustain the services we deliver for local people unless this situation is quickly addressed. Our stance is in accordance with actions being taken by other authorities in response to the Government’s new guidelines.”
While necessary work began today (Thursday) to put up signage and reconfigure the pay and display machines at around 50 car parks across the district, charges will not be enforced until Saturday, giving local people time to readjust.
