Another rise in parking charges will ‘destroy shopping in Coventry’

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Commenter Blueblue123 had enough: “Not even a year after the last time the prices went up!” User Binleyboy says: “The council doesn’t want car drivers near the city centre. It’s all part of the grand scheme to punish car ownership.”

Deleteme agrees: “Well, parking revenue will go down as people use the shops in town even more. So the losses from operating the parking lots will increase. How can the council not understand that!” Further Facebook Ashley Smith thinks this is a good thing: “They just have to stop cars driving and parking around town, it’s a nightmare because most car drivers think they can park their car anywhere these days.”

Frawoo writes: “Easy, don’t go downtown, there’s plenty of free parking at all the retail parks. The council continues to kill the city center and use motorists as an easy target to do so.” Jim Weddell says: “People will refuse to shop in the city center, they will use the retail parks on the outskirts. The council will remove Coventry shopping, then more empty shops for visitors to our city to see. As the song said, “it’s gonna be a ghost town.”

Rares Xulescu does not agree that the increases are entirely the fault of the council: “The conservative government is the one that does not help. This is a cause-and-effect scenario: the council is not getting the right amount of money per capita from the government, so it has to generate revenue somehow, or things will get worse. Inflation affects everyone, I don’t understand how people can expect costs/taxes to stay the same.”

Reader Terryref is right: “A small increase, but a big one in the car owner’s budget.” Pedro1970 can see the benefit of the increase: “Funds raised will go towards improving the town center by the council.”

What do you think? Will Coventry city center benefit from the fares rise? Tell us what you think in our comments section.