CAR park charge changes could be set to bring in an extra £1.23 million for Stroud District Council in the next five years.

The proposed introduction of charges at currently free SDC car parks is expected to bring in an extra £330,000 by 2022.

This month the council announced plans for a public consultation on its proposal to introduce parking fees in a bid to boost its income.

It has already stated that prices are set to rise at council-owned car parks in Stroud from next week.

However, the upcoming consultation could affect facilities in Dursley, Berkeley, Wotton, and Nailsworth which are currently free to use.

In a report provided to Stroud District Council’s strategy and resources committee ahead of its meeting last week, officers are estimating that new charges will bring in £100,000 to the council in the 2019/20 financial year.

This would be followed by a forecast £110,000 in 2020/21 and £120,000 in 2021/22.

Boosting charges at council car parks, which are already pay-to-use, is forecast to raise an extra £150,000 in the next financial year, and rise by £50,000 over each of the following three.

This would total £900,000 by 2022, bringing the overall extra income in the next five years from both potential schemes to £1.23 million.

These schemes are an aim to reduce a forecast overall core council funding deficit of £3.4 million by 2020/21.

Other changes which are geared to halt this impact include removing funding for all three ‘Joint Use Sports Centres’, which SDC had shared with Maidenhill School, Thomas Keble and Rednock since 1997.

Stroud district councillor Steve Robinson (Lab, Nailsworth) said in July that this decision was made due to the decline in usage at each centre.

It could bring in further reserves of £150,000 each year from 2019/20, a total of £450,000 by 2022.

These will not be the last ‘efficiency savings’ required of the council to decrease its deficit.

The report states: “The council will need to deliver further budget and efficiency savings over and above those already identified in the report in order to balance the budget over the medium term and in future years.”