St Albans and Harpenden car parking charges to rise

VISITORS to St Albans and Harpenden will have to cough up more to park vehicles in council-owned car parks from Monday.

Charges at off-street car parks which are contracted to NCP are increasing from six to eight per cent, including at Gombards, Bricket Road North and the multi-storey facility at Drovers Way/Russell Avenue.

It will still cost 60p for up to 30 minutes and £1.20 for up to an hour but fees will increase by 20p for up to two hours to £2.60 and between two and five hours to £3.60.

The cost of parking for up to 24 hours will go up 50p to £9.

St Albans district council’s portfolio holder for community engagement Cllr Beric Read explained that the increases were in line with those stipulated in the authority’s contract with car park operator NCP.

He explained that charges did not rise every year but the agreement with NCP stipulated a percentage increase written into it.

Charges for other car parks and on-street parking which were not part of the contract had been frozen this year.

Cllr Read went on: “At the last full council one of the measures we agreed was that we were going to break the contract and keep prices the same for parking for 30 minutes or an hour. NCP agreed to it but they could have said no.”

The NCP contract, which Cllr Read said was one of the first contracts of its type when it was first entered into by the council, ends next year.