From the Gazette & Herald of January 26, 2005. Reproduced by kind permission. Visit www.thisisryedale.co.uk.

by David Jeffels

WORRIED business leaders in Malton fear that Ryedale District Council's planned increases in car parking charges will damage the town's economy.

The authority wants to put up the fees by 25 per cent to earn an extra £125,000 because of the need to raise cash to balance its budget shortfall of £337,000.

But Roddy Bushell, manager of the biggest town centre property owner, the Fitzwilliam Estate, said it was feared shoppers would opt to go to Monks Cross, where parking was free. "This increase will be a tax which will have a very significant effect on shops in the town."

Coun Paul Andrews, who led the opposition to the increases at last week's budget meeting at Ryedale House, has organised a meeting for February 3 with the district council’s chief executive Harold Mosley and other officers, and leaders of Malton and Norton Town Centre Management (MNTCM), in a bid to force a rethink on the issue.

He says the council should find savings by not recruiting replacement staff. "On average each year, there have been about 30 leavers. Last year, the average costs were about £15,000 each. If 14 of those posts had not been replaced, the council would have made efficiency savings of £210,000 – the total amount the officers seek to recover by raising car park charges."

He wants a personnel sub-committee set up by the council to explore ways of reducing staff costs. "Every time a member of staff leaves the authority, their job should be analysed to see if it can be done in another way by other people without making a replacement," said Coun Andrews. Speaking for some 180 businesses in Malton and Norton, Paul Beanland, a leading estate agent and member of the initiative's executive, said: "Feelings are running high that the new charges will have a very serious impact on trading."

Peter Mudge, the town centre manager, said there was a need to improve the partnership between the council and MNTCM because Malton was threatened with losing 100 car parking spaces if the new police headquarters is built in the Wentworth Street park. Car parking was vital, he said, because the towns were used by people from the large rural areas for shopping.

Coun Jason Fitzgerald-Smith, chairman of MNTCM and a Malton town council member, said: "We are trying to increase the number of people coming into Malton but raising the car parking charges will be counter-productive to that aim. There must be a change of heart."

He backed the idea of reducing staff through natural wastage as an answer to RDC's budget problems.

Glen Eddery, another member of the management group, said: "The proposed new charges are a stealth tax on the public and will really damage business in local shops." Also on the agenda for the February 3 meeting organised by Coun Andrews will be RDC's £20,000 support for market town renaissance in Ryedale which has now been put as a "low priority".

Mr Mudge said: "It is vital that business people and the public as a whole write to RDC to express their concerns about the new charges."