DUDLEY Council’s controversial changes to parking charges have been slammed as ‘from fairyworld’ by a senior Conservative councillor.

At a meeting on July 24, members of the council’s Environment and Regeneration Select Committee debated plans for a new parking strategy in the borough which includes the removal of free parking for the first two hours on car parks run by the authority.

Cllr Ian Kettle was quick to criticise the claim that money raised from new fees and increased existing charges would be ploughed into improving borough highways.

Cllr Kettle said: “You say income from parking will be reinvested back into the road network, that is something you can’t guarantee, that’s fairyworld, that’s in the land of Peter Pan.

“In the real world, in times of tight finances discretionary spending on roads has been cut to ribbons.

“The roads are worn out because they haven’t been maintained so to say the money will go back into roads is not true.”

The former mayor hit out after a presentation from the council’s director of environment, Nick McGurk, which outlined a six-year parking strategy which included principle of reinvesting cash into roads and car parks.

The new charges along with the introduction of a private company to enforce parking regulations is planned to start in October.

The second phase of the strategy is planned for April 2025 when the council aims to introduce charges on current free car parks alongside on-street parking charges.

Cllr Kettle was also critical of bringing in charges before improvements had been made, he said: “Sometimes there are potholes and puddles in these car parks you could drown in.

“Surely we have got to put them in good repair before we can even think of charging.”

Mr McGurk said: “Dudley hasn’t had a vision for parking for too long, I want to stress this is a strategy and not a quick fix.

“The aims are to support regeneration, allowing us to keep our road network in a good state of repair and free from congestion and looking at detrimental effects from traffic and pollution.

“Our primary objective is to encourage motorists to park outside town centres.”

Councillors also told the committee businesses were concerned about losing footfall if charges were changed.

Cllr Kash Khan said: “This is really unfair for local businesses and will have a devastating impact on them.

“I think £2 per hour needs to be reconsidered, it is absolutely extortionate, we should start off with £1 for the first hour, the last thing we want to do is drive away shoppers.” 

Mr McGurk said: “We know there is a significant change within the local economy in town centres, there is a separate conversation about what we need to do within town centres.

“I don’t believe parking is a cause of that or massively contributes to the downfall, people will go to Merry Hill because they want to go to a specific shop or for a specific reason.

“People also come into Dudley town centre for other specific reasons, work, visiting an area or shops, we are in a place where we are going to be far more proactive. 

“We have got to start somewhere so we can get to a point where we can start to support businesses, I don’t believe the local economy is driven through parking.”