Breckland Council spends £90k on planned parking scheme

But a Norfolk council has now revealed the eye-watering cost of its mission to introduce car parking fees, before the scheme has even got off the ground. 

Breckland Council's cabinet recently voted in favour of introducing charges across the district amid increasing budget pressures and struggles to afford maintenance costs. 

The idea has been met with significant backlash and some locals have suggested they would prefer to have their council tax increased in order to keep parking free.

However, councillors at the Conservative-led authority are reluctant to explore such alternatives, having already agreed to spend around £90,000 on initial steps to develop the scheme. 

Breckland Council has pushed forward with plans to introduce car parking fees across its towns (Image: Matthew Usher) The council hopes to introduce car parking fees in Dereham, Swaffham, Thetford, Watton and Attleborough and has been developing the project since it was officially launched in July. 

These plans are still in development and the authority is set to launch a public consultation this month to assess how much people would be willing to pay and during which hours they would prefer to see charges implemented. 

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Paul Hewett, the council's executive member for property, said: "The challenge that we are facing is that the clock is ticking. Every month that we spend talking about an alternative option is costing us.

"We need to act now. I'm absolutely clear that these are difficult choices to make but we need to be fully aware of the impact of the decisions we are making."

Paul Hewett, Breckland Council's cabinet member for property and projects (Image: Gary Donnison) The council has already agreed a £56,000 spend to cover project management and communication costs and has recently assigned a further £32,000 to undertake initial detailed design and technical preparation work.

The authority said ongoing budget pressures were forcing it to find alternative measures - namely, the introduction of fees - to pay the current bill for the upkeep of the car parks, which amounts to £450,000 a year.

Fees are expected to differ from town to town and Sam Chapman-Allen, the leader of the council, has conceded that some car parks may have "no charging at all".