As previously reported, new parking tariffs will come into force shortly in the Headington (Old High Street) and St Leonard’s Road car parks. The new tariff is likely to be implemented in 5-6 weeks time.

We are grateful to the residents and businesses who have worked with us to identify and propose a different time slot in the parking charge tariff to Scrutiny Committee and to City Executive Board. There will be a new time slot of 0-2 hours. The charge for this will be £1.20 and it will be reviewed (to make sure it works) in 6 months time. It will be good for businesses because it encourages some shoppers to stay for longer in Headington on their shopping trips to visit more shops and restaurants. It will be good for shoppers because  they won’t now have to worry about rushing back to the car park to feed the meter when they’re in the middle of buying something.

The original charge for the 1-2 hour time slot had been £1.50 so we are pleased that we have negotiated this down on behalf of residents and businesses. There will also be a limited business permit scheme similar to the one in operation at Westgate and more work will be done on this very shortly.

We know that many residents would like to retain a lower rate for very short term parking, and another option we put forward was for two slots of 0-30 minutes, and 31 minutes-2 hours. The Scrutiny Committee felt there was not enough data on how long people park for this to be a viable option at this stage, so we will fight for more accurate data to be recorded

We are also very concerned about Sundays being included in the weekday tariff. Normal rates will apply on Sundays and the Board member stated to Ruth yesterday that any concession to keep Sundays fixed tariff cannot be afforded in the current financial climate. This means that a family parking for 4 hours stay on a Sunday to use the Park’s facilities would be faced with a £12.50 charge, and we think this is unacceptable. We will continue to fight this!

We are aware that this Sunday tariff issue may cause problems for Old High Street residents in particular; they sometimes park their cars in Headington car park and let their visitors use the spaces in front of their houses, because of the lack of resident parking in their area. We are seeking alternative ways of achieving this, possibly by making a business case for allowing OHS residents to park there and display residents’ parking permits as is already the case in another car park. But we will need better data to justify this. Watch this space!