Fears night time parking charges in Glasgow will drive away customers

Business owners in Glasgow are demanding an urgent meeting with the leadership of the city council to plead with them to reverse plans to ramp up parking charges which they fear will drive away more customers.

The three-year budget agreed yesterday (Thursday) includes measures to bring in more income by extending parking charges until 10pm, seven days a week.

Currently in the city centre zone parking charges for street spaces are applied between 8am and 6pm, Monday to Sunday, costing £1.40 for 15 minutes with a two hour maximum stay.

The budget which includes a freeze on council tax rates was passed following an agreement between the SNP and Green groups.

What's attracting customers to Glasgow?

Louise McLean, who runs a number of hospitality venues across Glasgow, including The Spiritualist on Miller Street, is telling Clyde 1 News she fears it will be another blow to struggling firms.

"People are going to vote with the their feet, or with their wheels in this instance." she warns.

"If it costs five pounds to park for an hour to go to Next, but it only costs three ninety-nine to have the same garment delivered, and it costs nothing to park in an out-of-town shopping centre, what is driving people to the city?

"This was clearly a very difficult budget after many years of pressure on local government funding.

Business chiefs 'dismay'

Weighing into the debate, Stuart Patrick, Glasgow Chamber of Commerce chief executive said: "We continue to share the aims of the City Council in growing the city’s economy but there will be dismay at the prospect of increased parking charges and the prospect of workplace parking levy and congestion charges on top of this will make Glasgow less attractive for businesses to invest within.

"It is vital we see improvements in public transport long before considering any further taxes on car users which place even more barriers to people want to visit our city centre.

"Glasgow Chamber of Commerce has long argued for improvements in public transport but the Scottish Government budget undermined that prospect with the removal of the Bus Partnership Fund."

Driving behaviour change

City council leader Susan Aitken defended the increase in charges and explained it is part of a vision to reduce the number of vehicles coming into the centre of Glasgow.

She told us: "Glasgow actually has more space given over to stationary cars than almost any other comparable city in the UK, even though we have a much lower rate of car ownership.

"Part of that is wanting the change behaviour, wanting to get people to use public transport to get into the city differently.

"Particularly at night we would want driving to be less of the mode that people are using and they would find other ways to come into the city centre.

"This is what cities right across the world are doing. Some of the most successful cities in Europe have made their city centres almost car-free."

Hear the latest news on Clyde 1 on FM, DAB, smart speaker or the Rayo app.

• Glasgow