During the July meeting of Bradford Council, Cllr Andrew Loy (Ilkley and Ben Rhydding) called out planned changes to on-street parking in Ilkley. Cllr Loy suggested that the changes are "so stingy they could have been written by Ebeneezer Scrooge."
The unpopular changes include scrapping the one hour of free parking currently available in Ilkley, extending evening charges and imposing charges on bank holidays.
A petition was presented to the meeting by Ilkley resident, Richard Downey, who said the removal of the free parking would be "immensely damaging" for local businesses. Over 4000 signatures have been received by the petitions urging the council to halt the plans to alter the parking scheme, clearly showing the strength of feeling on this matter
Richard told councillors: "It helps people shop locally and make visits to doctors and post offices. Having to pay to visit shops for a few items will make it inconvenient to shop locally – footfall will be down and people will be drawn to retail parks.
"Many residents will stop visiting the town's small businesses. Evening charges will deter people from visiting our theatres."
During the debate following the presentation of the petition Cllr Andrew Loy said:
"The charges will unfairly impact certain groups of people. They include the elderly, less mobile, parents dropping off children at school and parishioners of churches who rely on on-street parking to attend their local church services.
"How is it fair that they might face a parking fine for parking outside their church on Christmas Day?
"It's like Ebenezer Scrooge is writing the council's parking policy."
Robbie Moore MP will also present the petition againt the plans to scrap Ilkley's one hour Free Parking to Parliament later this year. You can sign the petition by clicking here
