In April 2009 Cheshire East Council took on the responsibility for car parking control across the whole of the borough. Prior to this there were 3 different car parking control policies in place, with considerable differences across the area of Cheshire East.
With both businesses and shoppers having criticised these considerably different tariffs the council today confirmed a new strategy is in place to address this, but it will take some time to achieve commonality of control.
The first stage of the strategy was to bring appropriate controls in Congleton which has now been achieved for both on and off street parking. Also, the anomaly of Sunday charging in Crewe and Nantwich has now been addressed.
A Cheshire East spokesperson said "We are very aware that there are still differences across Cheshire East and we now wish to draw up a fair rationale for charging across all CEC pay and display car parks. In doing this we do have to recognise that there will be an impact on the budget.
"No representations were received during the extensive budget consultation with regard to a common charging policy. The budget for 10/11 has now been set, and cannot now be changed.
"In order to determine the rationale to bring fair and consistent charges across the area once and for all, a thorough exercise must be undertaken to establish what these charges should be.
"It is the intention of Cheshire East Cabinet that any revised charges will be discussed and consulted on as part of the budget setting process for 2011/2012 and we do not envisage any increase.
"In forming the new Council and bringing together 4 different policies for all services across the area, many differences and anomalies have been identified other than that of parking control. This council is committed to addressing all of these as soon as possible but clearly they cannot all be tackled at once."
