NEWS that parking charges are to be increased is never a welcome one.
We understand the borough council’s problems: revenue from Government is shrinking rapidly, and to keep services it has to find new ways to balance the books.
We’ll get a clearer picture of that this week when the budget papers are announced. (Spoiler: there will be a council tax rise).
READ MORE: Council plans to raise Wokingham car parking fees from March
But right now Wokingham town centre isn’t just hurting, it’s howling with pain.
Our retailers aren’t just struggling, the shops are being held together by goodwill and missed payments. Salaries are being held back.
Why? Because not enough of us are shopping local, and the retailers want to see more help from the council.
And instead of help, we learn that the parking charges are increasing in the day, and being abolished at night.
We argued against 24-hour charging when the plans were first unveiled in 2016.
We were right then.
And we’re right now.
The only sensible thing to help our retailers would be to introduce a period of daytime free parking of, at least, two hours.
Free After Three, while a welcome move, isn’t much of a help, especially with traffic being bloody awful.
Raising prices now is simply fiddling while Wokingham burns. And that really is flubbing the right decision.
