Dereham Town Council Consultation on Breckland Car Park Charging

The current annual cost of managing Breckland Council’s car parks, across all 5 market towns, free at the point of use, is around £450,000. If car parking charges are introduced, the cost of maintaining the car parks increases to £865,000 per year, with the total cost coming from car parking charges.

On the information available, Dereham Town Council does not believe that charging to use car parks is necessarily the most cost effective way of paying for car parks.

If car parking charges are introduced, the tariff rate recommended by Breckland Council for Dereham is £0.80 for up to one hour and £1.20 for up to two hours, with one hour free parking in Cowper Road Car park (see below image for details). The all-day parking rate is recommended to be £3.20. There is proposed to be one free hour in one car park in each town. The full report detailing the introduction of parking charges can be found on the Breckland Council website.

The Town Council believes that if there is to be a change in the way car parks are to be funded, then it may be more cost effective to keep car parking free at the point of use and add £9.50 a year (£0.18 per week) to Breckland Council Tax*.

Breckland Council would only be permitted to increase Council Tax by an additional £9.50 per year if this is approved by residents through a referendum; with the majority of those voting agreeing to the proposal. The cost of holding a referendum would be around £140,000.

The Town Council would like to use the following survey to gauge how residents feel about this very important matter. If enough people complete the survey and prefer to keep car parks free at the point of use, this can be presented to Breckland Council for them to consider.

[* this is based on a band D property, properties banded A to C will pay slightly less and properties banded E to H will pay slightly more.]