Sir, – It is now over seven months since North Yorkshire County Council (NYCC) introduced car parking charges in Northallerton High Street.

I hear informally that the six month review might be happening this month, though there has been no notice or invitations issued. There has also been no response to the enquiries from the Northallerton Retail Business Forum to Cllr Tony Hall in November and December. Nor has NYCC replied to a report conducted by the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) in Northallerton in early December. Not even acknowledgements.

The parking charges were brought in against the advice from both these representative organisations and now their evidence has been proven correct. As everyone knows, there are now many empty parking spaces throughout the day. The county council insisted that off-street parking would be busier and congestion in the high street would ease. However, Hambleton District Council has reported that there has been no increase in use of the other car parks and 68 per cent of visitors are now spending less than 30 minutes parked in the High Street. How does encouraging people to stay a shorter time ease congestion? More motorists parking and traffic stopping increases not decreases congestion.

Senior councillors have told me privately that these charges (and fines) were brought in to raise £200,000 a year and, in the meantime, Northallerton High Street is dying. Their scheme is raising around £20,208 a month and have damaged the prime function of this market town massively. Readers will also be interested to know the cost of managing the High Street charges scheme is estimated at £43,000 a year. This will not be the whole amount as the figures are from NYCC.

The FSB researched and published a report which was circulated to NYCC in early December. It provides further evidence that, across the entire business sector in Northallerton, takings are down as a result of these charges. There are fewer visitors and they are spending less time in our town centre. NYCC has no knowledge to the contrary.

For all these reasons the justification for these parking charges has failed. Or perhaps the members of the Hambleton Committee of NYCC would like to write to the D&S stating why the charges should remain. Instead of hiding behind an cowardly ivory tower of silence, it is time for these Councillors to “man-up” and, for once, protect our market towns.

MARCUS GROVER

Grovers Optics & Photographic

High Street, Northallerton.