FOI request (FOIR-339017817)

Parking Fees

Requested Tue 01 June 2021
Responded Wed 25 August 2021

1. Did the council introduce free or reduced car parking during the pandemic (i.e since March 2020)? If so, please provide a brief summary of the fee reduction (location, extent of price reduction, whether scheme was for key workers or all motorists, and so on). If more than one scheme was introduced please detail each one.

2. For each scheme, what date did the reduced parking fees scheme come into effect and on what date did it expire/was it due to expire?

3. For each scheme, has the scheme been extended beyond the duration that was initially announced? If so, until what date?

Response

Please accept my apologies for the delay in responding.

1 and 2. From the 26th March 2020 Hastings Borough Council offered free parking in all the Council owned car parks to NHS staff providing front line services. We also extended this to residents who had on street East Sussex County Council residents permits who may have been self isolating and struggling to find somewhere to park. From 2 April 2020 we extended the free parking in the Council owned car parks to critical key workers identified by the list on the Government web site. These were for a period of 12 weeks.

3. From the 28 June 2020 we reviewed these concessions and offered free parking to NHS, health and social care workers and NHS COVID-19 volunteers free parking in all the Council owned car parks only. This came to an end on the 29 March 2021.

The government parking pass scheme was still in place and we continued to recognise these in the Council owned car parks. The government withdrew the pass on 21 June 2021 but we continued to accept the government passes in our car parks up to the 30 June 2021.

From the 1 July 2021 all parking charges in the Council owned car parks were applicable. On street parking concessions are dealt with by East Sussex County Council. Please visit their website for further information:

https://www.eastsussex.gov.uk