It took three senior councillors less than three minutes to rubber-stamp a 60% increase in car parking charges for Huddersfield, Holmfirth and Dewsbury.

Kirklees Council had originally planned to increase charges from February 19 but had to delay implementation until a 21-day “non-statutory consultation” took place.

The limited results of that consultation were presented to a specially-convened meeting of the Cabinet Committee Local Issues on Friday morning.

Chaired by Cabinet member for regeneration and finance Clr Graham Turner and attended by council leader Clr Cathy Scott and Cabinet member for housing and highways Clr Moses Crook, the meeting lasted less than three minutes.

The decision was taken to increase parking charges – likely to be in April, though no exact date has yet been decided.

Charges haven’t been increased since 2009 and the rise has been back-dated by the rate of inflation over the last 15 years.

In future, charges will be reviewed every year and decided by a senior council officer, not councillors. The new charges can be found HERE.

Clr Turner told the meeting: “We haven’t raised charges since 2009 and we have tried to be a good authority by trying to keep our prices low especially during a cost-of-living crisis.

“But, unfortunately, the time has come where we have to look at increasing our income through car parking charges. We have been losing money over those years.

“Inflation has been 60.69% since 2010 with an average of 3.45% a year so if we had increased them year-on-year we would have still got to the same figure we are proposing today.”

Clr Aafaq Butt, Cabinet member for culture and greener Kirklees, has previously said that charges would be increased on Monday April 1 – Easter Monday – but that is not now going to happen.

In a statement after the meeting, Clr Butt said: “Now that the uplift in fees has been approved, pending a 7-day call in period, our parking team will begin the operational work required to roll out the new tariffs across the district. The new tariffs will go live in April.

“This has taken slightly longer than initially set out as we have not left the decision to officers but opted to undertake a more robust and transparent approach to the consultation process taking all feedback on board before the decision was made by elected members.

“At this time the team is also beginning work to introduce fees in car parks across the borough which are currently free.

“They are currently reviewing the best way to conduct the consultation which will give the best opportunity for meaningful feedback.”

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