Parking in Longley Road car park has gone up 60p an hour, the Council says it's had to due to financial pressures.
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00:00 Reign and businesses are fearful for their future as they say the council's decision to increase
00:05 parking charges in the precinct has caused a severe drop in footfall. Medway council says
00:12 it had to raise fees to balance the books but local traders are now concerned what this will
00:17 mean for their sales as they say they have fewer customers. The councillors around here have just
00:23 increased ours up with no thought for the sole traders or the fact that other people here are in
00:30 a crisis, cost of living crisis, so why would you possibly increase things like this at the moment
00:36 now? Since it's been increased the car park prices we've seen the amount of people lowering every
00:43 week and then we're just worrying about for the future as well. After a tough few years for Medway's
00:50 economy local businesses have said we should be encouraging people to shop locally. They could
00:56 either decrease the charge, they could take out or give us one free day's parking or a specific
01:06 time frame during the day because obviously the idea is you want to encourage people to come to
01:10 the precinct or high street as opposed to deterring them. Parking at Longley Road car park has gone up
01:16 by 60p an hour. It would have cost me only £1.70 to park here for two hours in Raynham car park
01:23 but now that the new charges have been introduced it now costs £2.30 to park here for the same time.
01:30 I really don't understand why we're having this increase in parking charges. There's no improvement
01:39 in parking or these parking areas. I think the parking charge would have some knock-on effect
01:45 on Raynham. They should have risen them by say maybe 20 or 30p. I tell you what we're all pensioners
01:52 so we would rather it was something reasonable. However a portfolio holder on Medway council
02:00 Lauren Edwards said decisions such as this are important to balance the books while dealing with
02:06 financial pressures and increased parking charges will bring Raynham in line with the rest of the
02:12 county. Councillor Edwards said the council is committed to supporting Medway small businesses.
02:18 As local councils face financial pressures they say difficult decisions have to be taken
02:24 but for the local businesses in Raynham they hope residents will continue to shop locally
02:31 so their doors can stay open. Henry Luck for KMTV in Raynham.