Cambridge City Centre Parking Changes

At the Area Joint Committee (AJC) this week we were asked to support Cambridge City Councils proposal to increase the parking charges for the City Centre Car Parks from 1st April 2010. On-Street parking is going to be reviewed at a later date.

This was supported by the Committee and will now go out to a wider consultation with organisations across the city.

So what are the changes? Well the differential pricing across the cities car parks (something I have to say I hadn't really appreciated) will remain. For multi-story car parks the charges for during the day are valid from 7.30am to 5pm, outside that time the evenings and overnight charge applies.

The proposed changes are (by car park);

Bearing in mind the smallest coin the ticket machines will take is 10p the overnight changes were always going to be the place where the increase made the most obvious difference.

The cheapest car park in Cambridge (by quite a long way) is Queen Anne's;

By contrast the most expensive (but also the most modern) is the Grand Arcade. As anyone who drives and parks in Cambridge regularly will know it is also the most likely to be full - hence the larger (in monetary terms) increases;

I asked for some additional numbers from the officers and this revealed that 80% of tickets are paid within 3 hours, and that 95% of all tickets are paid within 5 hours. There were around 2.5 million tickets sold last year and these changes will lead to an increase in revenue for the City of around £300K - as a side effect of increasing the prices the officers estimate that 80 cars per day will choose not to park in the city car parks.

In the past year (despite the recession) usage in the City Centre car parks has increases by .1% (1/10th of a percent).

The eventual plan seems to be to end the differential pricing for Sundays but the proposal will change the Sunday prices from £1.50 to £1.70 for everywhere but Park Street which will change from 80p to £1.00.

Pricing for the Surface Car parks will also be changing (times these apply vary by car park);

• Adam and Eve Street Car Park: 50p for 20 minutes to 80p for 20 minutes
• Castle Hill Car Park: Up to 4 hours has changed from £3.00 to £3.40, up to 8 hours has changed from £6.00 to £6.80
• Gwydir Street Car Park: 60p for 30 minutes changes to 70p for 30 minutes
• Riverside: 30p for 20 minutes increases to 40p for 30 minutes

The season ticket charges are also changing- these are based on the vehicles emissions and are actually quite a big table. There aren't many of these issued (mainly to local businesses) if anyone is interested in the charges leave a comment and I'll respond.