00:00Liverpool Council confirmed last year's increases in parking tariffs boosted revenue by around £6 million.
00:08Following public consultation, extended parking hours were also introduced from 7 in the morning until 11 at night,
00:16despite almost 90% of respondents opposing the move.
00:20If you're on Old Hall Street, 9 to 5, there's a lot of people parking their car there who have
00:27got big jobs,
00:27big wages, 40, 50, 60, 100 grand, they don't feel it so much.
00:32But once you arrive, because your job is to, say, clean the office at 6.30 p.m.,
00:39and you need to park your car, and now you have to pay for that,
00:42the wages that you earn will likely be the national minimum wage.
00:46And so you are disproportionately impacted, because night workers, usually people who work late at night,
00:53are generally paid less than people that work in the city centre of Liverpool during the day.
00:58Early data shows over 7,000 drivers were caught out by the first three months of extended parking charges.
01:06Footfall data suggests that increases have not deterred visitors to the city centre during peak and off-peak periods.
01:12These measures are intended to standardise parking provision and help manage demand effectively,
01:18whilst funding city operations and services sustainably.
01:22However, there has been huge backlash, especially from the hospitality sector.
01:28It does, yet again, disproportionately impact industries like hospitality.
01:35Hospitality, then, on top of that, as an employer, we then very often have a recruitment problem,
01:41and people say, well, because there's no night bus or no this,
01:44and that provision for me to get to work makes it harder for us.
01:47Charges for a 30-minute stay have risen from £1.20 to £2,
01:52and an hour increase from £2.40 to £4.
01:56The council says the rises did not deter visitors,
01:59with 86.7 million people entering the city centre in the year to October 2025.
02:06From April, parking charges will increase yet again,
02:09with half-hour bays costing £2.30, one hour costing £4.40, and two hours costing £6.50.
02:18If you make hospitality through different, not just car park, but also taxation and all kinds of other reasons,
02:26if you make hospitality a less attractive place, less employment in there,
02:32all these young people that used to use hospitality as a springboard into other careers
02:38or into bigger jobs within hospitality might not get that chance anymore.
02:42Opposition councillors warn higher tariffs may redirect shoppers to out-of-town centres,
02:47such as Cheshire Oaks or the Trafford Centre.
02:50The council maintains prices are in line with the likes of Manchester and Birmingham,
02:54arguing city centre access remains competitive with other urban centres in the UK.
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