Business leaders call for local authorities to scrap parking charges in run up to Christmas

Nine leading business organisations have written to the Scottish Government and COSLA urging the government to offer a package of support to Scotland’s local authorities to enable them to introduce a waive on all parking charges until the end of the year.

The plea comes as many tourism and retail businesses within Scotland’s towns and cities struggle to remain solvent amid a significant decline in footfall due to the current restrictions around travel between Scotland’s local authority areas, public health guidance discouraging people from using public transport for anything other than essential travel and the loss of the international market.

The organisations cite parking as a regressive charge at a time when consumers are painfully mindful of income, expenditure and future financial uncertainty and highlight the need for barriers to trading to be removed to bring much needed life back into Scotland’s towns and cities, stimulating local economies ahead of what is traditionally the busiest month for hospitality and retail.

The text in the letter is below:

ENDS

As Chief Executive of the Scottish Tourism Alliance (STA), the representative body for Scotland’s tourism industry, I have many daily conversations with sectoral bodies and business organisations to discuss the current challenges faced by tourism businesses across all sectors as a result of the pandemic.

One of the issues that has been flagged, particularly by businesses in our towns and cities which as you know are having to weather a particularly heavy storm due to the significant decline in footfall, relates to local authority parking charges which is further compounding the already devastating impact the pandemic has had on our hospitality and retail businesses.

Current restrictions on movement between local authority areas prevent large sections of our population from travelling to what would normally be their choice of destination for shopping, dining or cultural experiences, as does the guidance discouraging people from using public transport for non-essential purposes.

While the extended furlough we hope, will prevent a larger wave of redundancies than we had anticipated, prior to the Chancellor’s recent announcement of support, it still comes at a cost to tourism and retail businesses and those in the supply chain.  It has already been highlighted to ministers and others by the STA and many of the co-signatories to this letter that tourism, hospitality and retail businesses in all of Scotland’s communities are experiencing immense challenges in attracting the level of footfall that would make a marked, difference in their ability to stay afloat, their ability to employ staff and to make the employer contributions necessary for those staff who they have had to put on furlough, and indeed plan for recovery.

Many of our tourism and hospitality businesses are starting to close for a variety of reasons; the decline in footfall as a result of restrictions, grant support falling significantly short of what would be required to allow them to remain solvent and the loss of the international visitor market.

Others will not survive what is now referred to as the ‘third winter for tourism’; these businesses are the lifeblood of Scotland’s tourism industry, our economy and indeed communities across Scotland. Without them, we will have a significantly compromised tourism and hospitality product to showcase when we are eventually in a position to welcome the world back to Scotland.

Removing as many barriers as possible to enable those businesses who believe they can trade in a meaningful and profitable way must be a priority for local and central government; the cost of parking in our towns and cities is viewed by a number of business organisations as a major barrier to trade and we would therefore ask that consideration is given to removing all local authority parking charges in the run up to Christmas to create the stimulation needed to bring life back to our local economies.

As a regressive charge, taking no account of ability to pay, parking charges discourage all from travelling safely to local shops and restaurants at a time when consumers are painfully mindful of income, expenditure and future financial uncertainty.

We acknowledge the financial challenges faced by all of Scotland’s local authorities and the importance of parking fees as revenue stream and would therefore ask that the Scottish Government consider diverting a portion of the £1bn allocated to Scotland by the Treasury to each of our local authorities to enable a waive on parking charges for at least until the end of this calendar year to allow businesses the best possible chance to trade in the run up to Christmas.

My colleagues from the organisations below and I would value a call with you both at the earliest opportunity to discuss our proposal further and to work together to find a solution that could make this possible before we move into what would traditionally be the busiest month for our hospitality and retail sectors.

Yours sincerely

Marc Crothall – Chief Executive, Scottish Tourism Alliance
Liz Cameron – Chief Executive, Scottish Chambers of Commerce
Liz McAreaevy – Chief Executive, Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce
Stuart Patrick – Chief Executive, Glasgow Chamber of Commerce
Andrew McRae – Policy Chair, Federation of Small Businesses Scotland
James Withers – Chief Executive, Scotland Food & Drink
David Lonsdale – Director, Scottish Retail Consortium
Phil Prentice – Chief Office, Scotland’s Towns Partnership
Denzil Skinner – Chair of Scotland’s City Bids Forum