Aberdeen City Council parking permit prices will increase by up to £140 for residents of the city centre from April.
Councillors today voted in favour of raising the charges for on-street and off-street parking, as well as parking permits, from April 1 2023.
From that date, the cost of an annual residential permit for some city centre areas will go from the current £60, all the way to £200.
The increase will not be as drastic in some parking zones of Aberdeen, but prices will be increasing everywhere permits are required except the Garthdee area.
On-street and off-street council parking fees will also be going up by 10% as a result of the Aberdeen City Council decision today.
Tory and Labour opposition councillors opposed the changes, arguing that they would discourage people from the city centre and impact people already suffering due to the cost-of-living crisis.
However the SNP/Lib Dem administration argued the move will be an important step in reducing the number of vehicles within the city centre of Aberdeen, and help make the heart of the Granite city a better place to live, work, and visit.
‘We should not be penalising people for the privilege of parking outside their own house’ says Tory group leader on Aberdeen City Council parking permits
Councillor Ryan Houghton, leader of the Conservative group on Aberdeen City Council, opposed the changes and argued any increases should be decided as part of the budget-setting process next year instead.
He argued that it is not clear right now how much additional money the increases will generate for the city council’s coffers, and explained his fears that it could deter people from the city centre.
Mr Houghton said: “This is a significant increase at a time when there’s already really difficult cost-of-living pressures on families and people across this city.
“We just had a city centre summit not too long ago, saying we need to be better at attracting people into the city centre.
“And what we’re saying by this is, if you come into the city centre, then you have to pay more.
“How is that an attraction? It is a deterrent.”
He argued that encouraging people to take active travel or public transport options instead of driving cars should be done “through a carrot, not a stick”.
The Conservative added: “We should not be penalising people for the privilege of parking outside their own house.”
‘This is essentially a punishment beating for motorists in the city’
Mr Houghton’s Tory colleague Duncan Massey had similar thoughts: “This is essentially a punishment beating for motorists in the city, and a punishment for the city centre itself.
“We’ve talked about Union Street and the city centre as a destination, I probably couldn’t think of a single measure that would be worse for the city centre than this.
“It doesn’t reflect the reality of where we are at the moment, people want to drive into the city centre with their car, they want to park, go shopping, and pursue leisure interests.
“We really do want to encourage cycling and buses, but we’re not there yet.
“It doesn’t reflect the reality that people want — and many people need — to take cars.”
‘These are hard-pressed working families’
Labour’s Sandra Macdonald highlighted that the myriad of parking permit zones in the city that the increases will affect aren’t just the more affluent areas of Aberdeen.
She said: “It would have been perhaps helpful to have a map showing these inner and outer areas, because it isn’t just those perhaps living in the West End, these are hard-pressed working families living in Stockethill, Park Street and elsewhere.
“We shouldn’t be doing it at this time, and we should consider this at the time of the budget.”
Aberdeen City Council parking permit increases will help make city centre ‘a place we all want it to be’, says finance convener
SNP councillor Alex McLellan, the city council’s finance convener, argued in favour of the price increases.
He also put forward a motion to alter some of the officer’s recommendations.
Councillors had initially been recommended to not only implement the steep new parking price rises from April onwards, but also to increase them by 5% every following year for a period of four years.
However, this extra annual jump was not approved, due to Mr McLellan’s motion.
Mr McLellan said: “Our partnership is keen to see a move to a different price structure for residential permits in the city centre, increasing substantially, in line with our objectives of improving the city centre and taking steps to view Union Street, and the wider city centre, as a destination, not a through-route.
“There’s an ongoing climate emergency, and there’s a need to ensure we’re taking steps to improve air quality in our city centre, as well as making it the best possible place for people and businesses alike.”
He said now is the best time to push forward with the parking permit price rises, “so that they can take effect following the budget process from April 1”.
The finance convener also argued it’s “absolutely crucial” that the city council’s parking policy and prices help to encourage more people into active travel and public transport options, in line with Scottish Government goals.
He said the more costly charges are “required to help us balance the budget, deliver services, invest in our city centre, and move our city forward, making it a place we all want it to be — a city with significantly less vehicles in the city centre, a place people want to work, live, come and visit, and indeed invest”.