Parking charges sucking life out of neighbourhoods

Donald Nairn, owner of Toys Galore in Edinburgh

One proposal is for a 10 per cent increase in pay-and-display parking charges, which is deeply unwelcome for anyone who still parks in Edinburgh. This comes on top of the 22 per cent increase last year and the 20 per cent increase the year before. Over three years, the cost of parking will have increased by a staggering 60 per cent!

I own Toys Galore in Morningside and we are dependent on our customers’ ability to access our shop. Many come by public transport, but many still prefer to travel by car. If they can’t afford to park in Edinburgh, they will simply drive to the many out-of-town retail parks or shop online.

This saddens me as I strongly believe in what local businesses provide to the local community. Shops like ours make for a distinctive high street. We also contribute to the local economy, through employment and taxes. The money we earn remains in Edinburgh, unlike the profits of bigger, national competitors.

One justification offered up for the high parking charge is to curb congestion. Charges have increased by a whopping 46 per cent already, but no-one can say traffic flow has improved. Customers who might have considered shopping in Edinburgh now drive to Fort Kinnaird, Straiton, Hermiston Gait, Craigleith or the Gyle. These massive retail parks have developed on all the main routes out of Edinburgh for one reason: free parking!

Some might think that this will raise much needed revenue for vital council services. That would be wrong. Despite the enormous increase in charges, revenue has increased by a paltry 8 per cent since 2019.

Simply put, less people are coming into Edinburgh to shop or use other businesses. If the council had been less greedy and just increased charges with inflation (approx. 25 per cent), they could have raised much more revenue. They chose instead to kill the golden goose.

There is also the St James Quarter – a foreign owned, self-contained car park (1600 spaces) with a shopping centre on top. 75 per cent of it is owned by a Dutch pension fund and it makes money by charging us for parking. When Edinburgh planners allowed this to be built, they allowed foreign-owned funds to cream off lucrative parking revenue for their own investors. The Council needs to realise the parking it controls is in competition with both the much cheaper St James Quarter and the retail parks, where parking is free.

Parking charges are a tax on our customers. We already pay a lot in tax through the antiquated rates system and unlike our English counterparts, we don’t receive a rebate. We are also dealing with an upsurge in shoplifting. This is all demoralising and has led to a feeling that local and national politicians just don’t care about us.

We are still recovering from trade we lost during the pandemic. Small businesses like ours were forced to close, whilst other companies stayed open and this changed shopping habits. We will only recover fully if politicians don’t obstruct our efforts.

The parking charge disproportionately hurts those on lower incomes. When she was in opposition Councillor Mandy Watt, now the Council’s Finance convenor, said lifting parking charges would “price people out of accessing the same facilities that everybody else has the opportunity to use”. “When you put in massive parking charges” she continued, “what you’re effectively doing is saying only very well-off people should be able to have and use cars.” I couldn’t agree more Mandy!

As a business, we are sympathetic to the pressures councillors are under to balance the books, but budgets mustn’t suck the life out of Edinburgh’s vibrant local neighbourhoods. Short-term thinking has already decimated areas like Dalry and Princes Street. Nobody wants to see Edinburgh’s shopping landscape reduced to out-of-town retail and the St James Quarter.