{"id":566623,"date":"2025-11-13T01:35:13","date_gmt":"2025-11-13T01:35:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/566623\/"},"modified":"2025-11-13T01:35:13","modified_gmt":"2025-11-13T01:35:13","slug":"update-on-new-charges-for-22-free-car-parks-in-merseyside","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/566623\/","title":{"rendered":"Update on new charges for 22 free car parks in Merseyside"},"content":{"rendered":"

The plans have been delayed but still look set to go ahead\"AllportAllport Lane car park in Bromborough Village(Image: Colin Lane\/Liverpool Echo)<\/p>\n

Controversial parking charges across the borough appear to have been pushed back again for 22 free car parks across Wirral<\/a>. Despite the delay, Wirral Council<\/a> is still planning to go ahead with introducing them.<\/p>\n

The council currently operates 25 pay and display car parks across the borough as well as on-street parking on 940 streets in and around central Birkenhead<\/a>.<\/p>\n

However the council is planning to bring in further car parking charges to 22 car parks that are currently free. On-street charges are also expected to be introduced in coastal areas around New Brighton<\/a>, Wallasey<\/a>, Meols, Hoylake<\/a>, and West Kirby<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A capital report before councillors at a November 19 meeting said current expectations were for pay and display equipment to be bought<\/a> between January and March 2026 for \u00a3250,000. Further costs for signs, lines, and general repairs to car parks would come after April costing \u00a3750,000.<\/a><\/p>\n

Previous reports put out by the local authority suggested charges would help cover a shortfall in the council\u2019s budget and charges were originally expected to be introduced earlier this year. The delay is having an impact on the council\u2019s budget.<\/p>\n

While highways and infrastructure services are expected to be \u00a3242,000 under budget, the report said: \u201cThere remains a number of risks including adverse weather<\/a> response, winter service, and the delayed implementation of new parking charges.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile inflationary increases to existing charges have been applied following committee approval, the introduction of charges in previously free car parks was originally expected in September.<\/p>\n

“However these would be January 2026 at the earliest. The service is continuing to capitalise staff costs where appropriate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wirral Council is still in a difficult financial position according to the report with a spending freeze introduced in September 2024 still in place.<\/p>\n

More than \u00a320m of the \u00a325m savings included in the budget for the current financial year could be delivered or offset by March 2026 but the local authority is still expected to be \u00a310.5m over budget.<\/p>\n

A report before councillors on November 19 said: \u201cThe financial year 2025\/26 includes challenging savings targets and the budgets were developed in the context of a persistently demanding environment, particularly due to increasing demands in social care.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs such, there is a continued expectation that budgets will need to be rigorously managed, with difficult decisions required throughout the year to ensure a balanced financial position is achieved by year-end.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite measures taken by the council, things have got worse over the last three months which \u201crequires immediate and decisive action\u201d. The local authority said this was particularly urgent when looking to set the budget for next year.<\/p>\n

The council could be looking at a budget gap from April 2026 of at least \u00a322.9m in a best case scenario. However in a worst case scenario, the budget black hole could be \u00a349.4m.<\/p>\n

Over the last six months, the council\u2019s level of net debt has decreased from \u00a3522m to \u00a3512m. A treasury report also before councillors said \u00a311.05m was taken out by the council to match the cost of a government bailout given to the council in 2021 and 2022.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The plans have been delayed but still look set to go aheadAllport Lane car park in Bromborough Village(Image:…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":566624,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8815],"tags":[748,393,4884,179,285,16,15,8881,9313],"class_list":{"0":"post-566623","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-liverpool","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-liverpool","12":"tag-politics","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom","15":"tag-wirral","16":"tag-wirral-council"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115539825833824360","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=566623"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566623\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/566624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=566623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=566623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=566623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}