Traders oppose parking fees hike for non-residents

A consultation over plans to increase parking charges for visitors and tourists at 20 or more car parks in Devon ends on Sunday.

South Hams District Council said it wanted to introduce higher fees for non- residents from April 2025 to help fund other services.

The authority would be one of the first in England to introduce a two-tier parking fee policy across its car parks with visitors potentially paying twice as much as those who live within the South Hams area.

Sue Hawkins, who owns Nature's Larder in Ivybridge, said the plans showed "ignorance of how the town works as a community" and were "short-sighted".

The leader of South Hams District Council, Julian Brazil, told the BBC the extra money collected was needed to pay for waste collection, keeping leisure centres open, looking after the beaches and streets.

Ms Hawkins, who has run her business for 25 years, said it would be "devastating" if the plans went ahead.

She said: "Most of our visitors aren't holidaymakers, they're people who work or shop here, so anyone from Plympton or Buckfastleigh will be classed as a visitor and charged extra.

"It's just making it harder and harder. Ivybridge is very easy not to come into because you just drive past it.

"There needs to be an increase...but don't use the car parks purely to fill a hole.

"It's completely ignorant."

Barbara Price, chair of Modbury Parish Council, said she was against the plans.

She said: "For a small town like Modbury, our traders rely on passing trade.

"If they see the increase in car parking charges that's going to be a deterrent to them.

"You can't keep trying to milk the tourists because they just won't come."

She said surrounding supermarkets, which had free parking, would benefit from the increase.

She added: "Whilst I appreciate it's to increase their revenue for other areas they want to spend money on, that's reliant on people actually coming and parking here.

"If you reduce parking people aren't going to come and you've lost your main reason for doing it and you've lost revenue anyway."

The council has said every local household would be able to register two cars to park at the local rate and any other vehicle in the household would have to pay visitor rates.

Mr Brazil said: "I can't say anyone's in favour of increasing car parking charges and if we didn't have to we wouldn't do it."

The council leader said councillors came to the decision as they were under "financial pressure".

"The fact we're charging visitors a little bit more than locals, that's been slightly controversial in the towns. What I would say is we're still one of the cheapest places to park in Devon.

"We think we've got the balance about right."

He continued: "Shopping and retail has changed massively over the past few years with the internet.

We've got to make these town centres places that attract people in and they become a destination. If we could do free parking that would be fantastic, but we can't afford to."

The consultation ends on Sunday and the decision will be made on the exact prices later in January after the comments are considered by South Hams District Council's executive.

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