Council chiefs defend parking charge hike in Newcastle-under-Lyme

This will mean it will cost an extra 10p to park for one or two hours on most car parks, following similar increases in 2024 and 2025. But council leaders say the charges will still be low compared to similar towns, and that Newcastle-under-Lyme will soon have a much better ‘offer’ for visitors thanks to the ongoing regeneration schemes at Astley Place, Midway car park and Ryecroft.

The council’s latest annual review of all its fees and charges will see average increases of 3.8 per cent, in line with inflation last year – although some service areas, such as parking, will see bigger hikes. Members of the finance, assets and performance scrutiny committee quizzed officials on the planned changes.

Opposition Labour councillor Mike Stubbs raises concerns over the ‘significant increases’ across parking, cemetery services and garden waste collection and the impact they would have on low income families.

Director for finance Craig Turner told the committee that increasing charges in some service areas helped the authority keep council tax low – a 1.99 per cent council tax increase is proposed for 2026/27, Mr Turner said: “When we look at the impact on our residents, lots of the fees and charges are choices. You have the choice of whether you want your garden waste collected, for example.

“So by increasing those, we keep council tax low. In a perfect world, we’d give everything for free. But we’re not in a perfect world and we’ve got our own inflationary costs to manage. By increasing fees by an inflationary amount, we’re able to keep the council tax increase for 95 per cent of our residents to 10p a week or less.”

But Councillor Stubbs argued that people had no real choice over using the council’s cemetery services.

He added: “I agree that there’s got to be a balance between council tax and other income, I understand that. But parking, for example, is significantly above the 3.8 per cent average on some car parks. That is going to affect anyone on a low income who wants to come into the town centre. They do have a choice – so do they stop shopping in Newcastle because they can’t afford to park?”

Mr Turner said fees generally had to cover the cost of providing a service, and that parking charges had previously been frozen for ‘an awfully long time’. He also claimed that the town centre offer would be ‘vastly improving’ over the next two years thanks to the regeneration projects, which will provide hundreds of flats and new commercial space.

Councillor Stephen Sweeney, cabinet member for finance, town centres and growth, said: “The Capital&Centric work going on in conjunction with ourselves means there will be a lot more people in the town, which will mean more businesses opening and people spending money in the town.”

Councillor Sweeney believes the parking charges in Newcastle will remain ‘very competitive’.

The increases will see the cost of parking at Castle car park for up to an hour rise from £1.20 to £1.30 from April, while the charge for up to four hours will go up from £4.70 to £4.90. Similar increases will be seen at other car parks in and around the town centre.