Leeds City Council has announced it will no longer pursue the idea of introducing parking charges at the city's parks.
Having taken feedback from residents, the council scrapped the idea which was supposed to help produce a balanced budget as many local authorities feel the strain. The idea, proposed earlier this month, would have seen a 40p per hour charge at places like Roundhay Park, Golden Acre Park and Otley Chevin.
Leeds City Council said today it would be able to produce a balanced budget next month without the proposal. However, other options may need to be looked at in future.
Read more: Leeds' 20 richest neighbourhoods where households are raking in more than £47,000
The council parks servce manages more than 4000 hectares of land. The net managed budget for 2023-24 is £10.219m, and the council are committed to spending £39m on greenspaces over the next year.
Councillor Salma Arif, Leeds City Council's executive member for public health and active lifestyles, said: “We have a firm commitment to improving the health and wellbeing of people in Leeds and ensuring they have access to parks and greenspaces is key to that. The initial proposals that were scheduled for consultation with the public were to introduce modest charges for car parking at a number of our parks, which would enable improvement works to be carried out as well as contributing to the council’s budgetary pressures.
“However, having listened to the valuable feedback we have received from residents, we will not be progressing this proposal at this time. Nonetheless, the financial outlook for all local authorities remains challenging and further work will need to be done to identify further savings and efficiencies for 2024/25 onwards.”
Read next:
