It will now cost more money to park in Bracknell town centre as new charges have been agreed.
Car parking charges for four of the town centre car parks are reviewed every year on the anniversary of the opening of The Lexicon in September 2017.
This year, councillors have agreed to a scaled increase of charges at four town centre car parks at The Avenue, High Street, Braccan Walk, and Weather Way (Bracknell Library).
The decision means prices will go up by 10p for one to two hours, and two to three hour stays. It will increase by 20p for three to four hours, four to five hours, and five to six hour stays.
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For six to seven hours, seven to eight hours, and over eight hour stays there will be a 30p increase.
The new charges will generate a projected £90,000 per year for the council, assuming car park user levels are 75 per cent of what they were in 2019/20 (pre-pandemic).
There will be no changes to ‘under hour’ stays and the overnight charge.
Councillor Marc Brunel-Walker (Conservative, Crown Wood) Bracknell Forest Council’s executive member for economic development and regeneration, stressed the decision ‘was not taken lightly.’
“Our ambition is for the charges to be as low as they can for the retailers and the residents.
“For the higher charges, you’re looking at eight, nine, 10 hour stays, and the amount of people that park for more than four hours is tiny, it’s a very low number.
“We don’t take these decisions lightly and generally people will see a 10p increase.
“It’s always a hard decision to make, and you always get complaints from 300 people claiming to be car park experts.”
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The increases were decided unanimously in a closed meeting of Bracknell Forest Council’s Town Centre Regeneration Committee on Monday, September 13.
Parking charges were frozen in 2018, the first anniversary of The Lexicon, but have gone up every year since.
Councillors had the option of increasing charges at a flat rate of 10p or freeze the prices, but decided against it.
Cllr Brunel-Walker said: “The regeneration committee agreed it was hard but the right decision to make, particularly as usage of the car parks is not back to pre-pandemic levels.
“Because of Covid car park income has been slashed. We have had generous financial support from the Government, which covered 72 per cent of our lost income, but it did not cover the whole cost of maintenance and other expenses.
“The decision to increase the parking charges is not an easy one, but we felt it better to increase it by a bit now rather than a bigger increase next year.
“But we want to keep the charges as low as we can to keep The Lexicon as attractive as possible for retailers and visitors as well.”
The new charges will come into force on Friday, October 1.
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