THE battle to stop Chippenham being hit with huge parking charge hikes has been ratcheted up a notch as MP Michelle Donelan raised the issue in Parliament.

Wiltshire Council has proposed to introduce parking charges in the town on bank holidays and Sundays, as well as increasing season ticket prices by up to 145 per cent.

The local MP took the debate to the House of Commons, saying that her constituents wrote to her about this issue more than any other.

“I completely empathise with the council’s motivations and thought processes in this area, but I hope to highlight the need for it to think again and to press the Minister to respect devolution but consider publishing best practice on this topic,” she said at the debate.

“As an MP, I have no power to dictate parking policy, nor should I, but I must stand up as a champion of my residents and businesses, as it appears that their voice has not been listened to or heard.

“In 2014, I conducted a local survey on parking charges and the key findings were that 93 per cent of residents agreed that parking charges were, then, too high, and 88 per cent of residents said they would shop in the town centre more often if prices were reduced even slightly. I raised the topic as one of my first questions to the Prime Minister on the support we could give market towns. The then Prime Minister, David Cameron, stated that he would argue: ‘In the case of market towns, that we should make parking easier and, preferably, free.’”

She added: “It is important to remember that we have lost a lot of our bus services in the last few years, so the policy is not working - and it is not sustainable, anyway. Plus, Sunday and bank holiday charges are expected to raise only £78,000 across Wiltshire, so they will cause more damage than they will raise revenue.”

The MP said after the debate that the drawbacks outweighed the positives.

“High Street shops, such as Lidl and Waitrose, have said they will leave. We are talking about job losses here which is dreadful and we need to stop this,” she said.

“The knock-on effect, which is something we are already seeing, is that people will park in residential areas and this makes it harder for emergency vehicles to get through.”

Bridget Wayman, cabinet member for highways, transport and waste said: “We started consulting on changes to our car park pricing from September until November 2017 and it was widely publicised. We had feedback from residents, business organisations and town councils, but we received no representation from Michelle Donelan during this period.

“Prior to the changes to charges that took effect on 1 February, we had not applied an inflationary increase to our parking charges since 2011. It is required as our parking services are facing significant cost pressures, including business rates, essential equipment upgrades and maintenance works and inflation on costs. Charges are generally set to manage supply and demand, as well as the congestion and environmental issues that we face.

“We do support non-commercial bus services with surplus income from off-street car parking. We consider it is essential to support these as there are more than 28,600 households (14.8% of all Wiltshire households) without a car and more than 80,300 households (41.4% of households) with only one car. When we previously consulted on changes to the bus services we had more than 11,000 responses, one of the highest response rates to any consultation, demonstrating the importance with which people hold the bus services.

“Season tickets are often limited and this does not permit everyone the opportunity of this discounted parking scheme. The proposal is for the season ticket charge to have more than a 50% reduction from the normal day rate parking charge. While we note the increase, this is still a substantial saving to those able to use the scheme.

“Even though we are deep into the process at this stage, the comments regarding the proposed charges have been captured and will be considered before any decision is made on the acceptance or rejection of the proposals.”