City Centre Controlled Parking Zone

The City Centre Controlled Parking Zone survey ran from 14 November to 12 December 2022.

We asked

We carried out engagement to hear from public, businesses, residents, commuters and residents who travel into the city centre to obtain their views on proposals that would affect the management of parking in the City Centre Controlled Parking Zone.

We wanted to hear your views on the following:

• Extending the existing hours of operation of the CPZ between 7am to 11pm
• Creating one single CPZ by combining the existing Inner and Outer Zones
• Creating 14 smaller sub-zones within the CPZ to improve operations
• Standardising the parking times for pay and display bays to a maximum stay of two hours, with no return within one hour
• Introducing a tariff increase of 10p per half hour in pay and display bays

The proposals are the first of a number of potential improvements to allow improved management of parking in the city centre making the Controlled Parking Zone fit for purpose now and in the future. This would have additional benefits on for regulating on-street parking in the evenings, improving traffic management, air quality and road safety.

An online survey was launched on 14 November 2022 on Liverpool City Council’s website. The consultation provided details of the proposals along with an online questionnaire to gauge people’s views. To raise awareness of the consultation, there were messages on Liverpool City Council’s social media platforms.

Paper copies of the questionnaire and documents were also available to view at Central Library.

People were also given the opportunity to make their comments by email, or in writing.

The consultation ended on 12 December 2023.

You said

A total of 1,489 responses were received, 1,464 from members of the public, 16 from businesses and 9 from strategic consultees. 1,459 were received from the online questionnaire, 18 were received from paper copies submitted at Central Library and 12 via email.

The responses to the direct questions aimed at the main proposals are below.

Overall, in response to the question “Do you agree with the proposal to change the CPZ operational hours to between 7am and 11pm Mon – Sun inclusive?”, 89% of all respondents were against, 8% were in favour and 3% neither agreed nor disagreed.

A further breakdown of these responses showed that 27% of residents, and 19% of businesses were in favour, with 72% of residents and 81% businesses against. Seven of the nine responding stakeholders were against the proposal due to concerns that the proposal will reduce their ability to increase visitor numbers and memberships resulting in potential loss of business.

The main areas of concern raised by members of the public, businesses and stakeholders can be summarised as follows:

• Respondents were unhappy at having to pay to park on street in the evenings and stated that they would go elsewhere for food and drink, leisure, and theatre activities where there is no charge for parking.
• Concerns were raised by respondents that the proposals would have an adverse effect on the number of people visiting businesses recovering from the Covid-19 pandemic.
• Respondents representing city centre workers and in particular those in the hospitality industry have objected to the proposals due to the additional costs for those who drive to work, as many are on the minimum wage.
• Respondents stated that public transport in the city is too infrequent, unreliable, costly for families and unsafe for lone travellers due to anti-social behaviour.
• The cost-of-living crisis was mentioned by a number of respondents who believe this is not the right time to be making changes.
• The early closure of Mount Pleasant cark at 8pm every evening was commented on and that it would be unfair to extend parking hours on street, unless alternative parking was made available.

A mixed response was received to the question “Do you have any comments on the proposal to increase the pay and display parking tariff by 10p per half hour?” with 45% of all respondents against, 23% in favour and 32% neither agreed nor disagreed. 26% of residents, and 25% of businesses agreed, 45% of residents and 44% businesses were against. Of those respondents that agreed with the increase, 77 stated they would only agree if the extension to the operational hours did not go ahead. 28 respondents stated that they thought the increase should be more. The majority of the responding stakeholders believed the increase to be reasonable, or had no comments to make.

The main issues and concerns raised by respondents have been summarised as follows:

• A high number of respondents believe that the existing charges are already too high.
• Several respondents feel that the increases are excessive particularly during the cost-of-living crisis.
• Comments were made regarding the pay and display machines regularly being out of order and many respondents are unhappy that they were forced to use the pay by phone app as an alternative which charged extra fees to use.
• There were concerns that people will park illegally and in residential streets pushing parking problems further out.
• Concerns were raised with regard to city-centre workers and how the proposals would adversely affect them, particularly the increased cost for night-time workers if the extended hours are implemented.

In relation to the question “Do you agree with the proposal to change the pay and display bays to a maximum stay of 2 hours”, there was an overall response of 80% against, 8% in favour and 2% neither for, nor against. 61% of residents and 87% of businesses objected to the proposal and 23% of residents and 13% of businesses agreed. Six of the responding stakeholders were against the proposal as they believed it would cause significant problems for businesses in the area, particularly the hospitality industry.

The main issues and concerns raised have been summarised as follows:

• Respondents stated that they require longer than 2 hours to shop, attend the theatre, concerts, cinema and restaurants, visit family and friends, or attend beauty salons.
• Respondents believe that the proposals will be damaging to businesses and the economy as they do not encourage people to stay in the city and spend money.
• A number of city centre workers, including those in the hospitality, voluntary charity sectors and hospital staff have stated that they would be adversely affected as they need to park for longer than two hours.
• Respondents stated that restricting parking to two hours would severely limit and compromise safety of out of hours shift workers and musicians requiring parking near to venues to transport equipment.
• Those attending church services, social /hobby clubs, hospital visits and training activities stated that they would be negatively impacted as they require longer than two hours.
• Respondents questioned why there needed to be any restriction on time as long as people pay.
• Respondents believe that the change in restrictions would cause more traffic congestion and pollution as motorists will need to move to other places to park.

In response to the question “Do you agree with the proposed changes to the internal sub-zone boundaries”, 6% agreed with the proposal, 37% disagreed and 57% neither agreed nor disagreed. 18% of residents and 6% of businesses agreed and 31% of residents and 31% of businesses disagreed. Of the nine responding stakeholders, one requested that the existing inner and outer zones remain as they currently are, one agreed with the proposal and the remaining seven made no comment.

The proposal to make changes to the sub-zone arrangement was not sufficiently clear to all respondents. The majority of responses were against any changes, however, a large percentage of respondents stated that they were neither for nor against. This appears to be mainly due to confusion about how the proposed zones would look, what the benefit would be in making the changes and who would be affected. A large number of respondents believe that:

• The boundaries are acceptable as they currently are
• The new smaller sub-zones are too complicated, restrictive and confusing
• The parking issues could potentially be pushed further out of the CPZ causing parking issues elsewhere rather than solving them

The question “Do you have any comments about future initiatives or improvements to the service?” received a number of responses. A summary of the main themes that emerged are listed below:

• More electric charging points and locations advertised
• Parking enforcement needed outside the city centre
• Investment in parking infrastructure with safer, secure council run multi storey car parks
• Work with Merseytravel to improve the public transport services
• Improve the phone app to make it more user friendly and without the additional charge
• Enforce illegal parking and in particular parking on pavements
• Re-introduce the night bus
• Introduce better and easier ways to pay such as credit card payments without having to use the app
• Have working pay and display machines in prominent locations
• Ensure any change to parking is balanced by better, cleaner, faster and safer public transport
• Increase disabled bay provision on-street
• Introduce park and ride
• Introduce pre-paid permits for on-street parking for businesses
• Discounts for weekends and Christmas
• Open Mount Pleasant car park up to midnight
• Visitor parking permit vouchers

There were a number of people who were happy with some or all of the changes. A summary of support for all changes is below:

• There should be a reduction of cars parking in the city centre
• Agreement with the proposals to discourage car use
• Agreement that If people want to park for longer they should use public transport or car parks
• There should be parts of the city that are totally car free, pedestrianised and with adequate cycle lanes
• A number of people (77) do not mind the increase in the tariff and are happy to pay as long as it stays free after 6pm
• Some people stated that they understood the need to raise funds and see this as a fair way to increase revenue
• People believe that even with the increase, parking on street is still cheaper than the private car parks
• Some people (28) think that the increase in tariff could be higher

We did

Following the outcome of the consultation and to address some of the comments made amendments have been made to the proposals as follows:

• Remove the proposal to introduce a 2-hour maximum stay time in pay and display bays throughout the entire CPZ area.
• Remove the proposal to introduce the internal sub zones. This may be looked at in more detail in the future.
• Introduce a 4-hour maximum stay (an increase from the existing 2 hours) in the pay and display parking bays in and around the Hope Street area, namely Hope Street, Maryland Street, Blackburn Place, Caledonia Street and Falkner Street. This is aimed at supporting the hospitality and entertainments venues in the area.
• Introduce 24 hour, 7 days a week opening of Mount Pleasant car park.
• Increase enforcement action by Civil Enforcement Officers to help manage illegal and dangerous parking.
• Further develop the proposals to introduce other types of parking after 6pm, such as residents parking, pay and display and disabled, at some existing parking bays. This will help to ensure that there are still parking opportunities in the evenings.
• Consider as part of future proposals, the replacement or develop better facilities for drivers, such as new pay and display machines.

Next steps

Following on from the review of the consultation, it is now the intention to formally advertise the revised proposals below over a 28-day statutory consultation period.

• Extend operational hours to between 7am and 11pm
• Increase maximum stay times to up to 4 hours for pay and display parking bays in specific roads in and around the Hope Street area
• Introduce shared bays with other types of parking, such as pay and display, disabled and residents’ bays, after 6pm at various locations
• Increase charges by 10p per half hour for pay and display parking

Thank you to everyone who took the time to share their thoughts and feedback with us.