WINCHESTER City Council signed off on a policy to end free overnight parking in city centre car parks.

From July an overnight charge equivalent to two hours of the daily rate will apply for off-street parking after 7pm and before 8am in central car parks.

Cabinet member for climate emergency, Cllr Kelsie Learney, approved the proposal in the decision day meeting on Monday, June 5.

Opposing comments from Cllr Neil Bolton, who questioned the impact on the city’s night-time economy and whether the changes would actually benefit the council’s net-zero target, were dismissed and all recommendations were agreed.

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Speaking at the meeting, Cllr Bolton said: “It is of no surprise that for the first climate emergency decision day after the elections, the Liberal Democrat administration has seen it fit to introduce increased parking charges and an overnight parking fee.

“This represents another inflationary cost to hit customers of Winchester’s night-time economy. When restaurants and bars in the city have been crying out for support and help, the administration looks the other way and introduces evening parking charges.

“There seems to be no proper assessment of the impact of introducing these charges. In particular, the numbers of cars parked past 7pm in the central car parks and an attempt to understand the impact of the charges on these numbers, what expected revenue would be generated for the council and most importantly of all in what specific way would this contribute to achieving net-zero and improving air quality?

“At least some attempt to understand the impact this would have on the night-time economy would have demonstrated some concern for the city’s businesses rather than this reckless disregard dressed up as a high pursuit of net zero.”

In response, Cllr Learney highlighted that the decision over parking charges was made months ago.

Service lead for environmental services, Campbell Williams, added that the team had met with Winchester BID who understood the reasons for the charges.

Overnight prices will apply to Colebrook Street, Cossack Lane, Middle Brook Street, Gladstone Street, Friarsgate, Jewry Street, St Peter’s, Tower Street and Guildhall Yard.

Meanwhile, parking charges will remain the same in car parks outside the city centre like Chesil Street, where it is free to park after 6pm and on Sundays.

Agreed recommendations included annually reviewing tariffs, working closely with the city council, honouring concessions to residents until permits expire and introducing an off-peak season ticket from October.

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Cllr Learney said: “We are taking an incremental approach to this, where we are making relatively small changes and monitoring the impact. Clearly, it is designed to be in line with the Winchester Movement Strategy which is our joint approach with the county to how we manage traffic in Winchester.

“One of the biggest dangers for traffic in Winchester is congestion. Too many people trying to come through the city at one time so the more we can encourage people to stay on the edge, the more we can help with that.”

The city council has started work with the county council to bring on-street restrictions in line with the car park charging periods.

While the city council waits on a decision from the county council it will support residents in the most heavily affected areas with additional concessions to allow them to use city car parks.