One of Liverpool's most prominent chefs and restaurant bosses has warned that the city council's controversial proposals for parking charges in the city centre could be "catastrophic" for businesses.
As part of its budget plans, Liverpool Council is currently consulting on scrapping free parking around the city centre after 6pm. Currently the charging period for parking is from 8am until 6pm but the new plans could see this change to 7am until 11pm. There could also be a small increase in the amount charged per half hour of parking.
The council says the plans are aimed at "modernising on-street car parking" and reducing congestion but Paul Askew, chef patron of the popular Art School restaurant, based near Hardman Street, says it could be devastating for an already struggling hospitality sector in the city.
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Speaking to the ECHO, Paul said: "We didn't have a normal Christmas, with lots of disruption and cancellations. This of course came after all the problems we faced in the pandemic and means we are always playing catch up. The last thing we need now is another barrier to stop people coming out and spending money.
"Parking can already be very difficult at times around the Georgian Quarter and this will be just another reason for people not to come here. I think the timing of it is utterly insane and the council needs to go back to the drawing board. We need them to incentivise people to come out and spend, not do the opposite.
"If they want people to keep paying business rates and bringing money into the local economy they need to rethink this. We are already sadly seeing businesses go under in these difficult times, independent hospitality businesses need support because they are working with such tight margins and have very little resilience after three disrupted Christmas periods."
Paul is a co-chair of the Liverpool Hospitality Association and says his comments reflect the views of many other businesses around the city who are deeply concerned about the impact the council's plans could have.
He added: "We've got 140 members who are pulling their hair out about this and thinking, 'why aren't the council helping us?' "Depending on where a business is based in the city centre, this plan could have a catastrophic effect.
"Most of us have been damaged over the past few years and don't have a lot of resilience. Ten or 15 fewer covers a week could see businesses having to start making redundancies. While we have been able to write in with our views, it would have perhaps been nice if the council had spoken with the hospitality sector before coming out with these proposals."
He also criticised the timing of the move, which - if approved by the council - would come into force just before Liverpool plays host to the Eurovision Song Contest. The well known chef added: "Eurovision could be a huge boost for the city and they are expecting 200,000 people to come into Liverpool. Not all of them will be based here or travel by train and again we think the timing of this plan could not be worse."
A spokesperson for Liverpool City Council said: “As part of a month long consultation just before Christmas, the city council engaged with many groups across the city centre including the Hope Street CIC to gather views on these car parking proposals. We have now received formal feedback from the group, and many others in the area, all of which is now being collated and analysed to inform what options are put forward in the follow-up statutory consultation. We expect this stage to take place in the coming weeks when we will be welcoming everyone to have their say on these more refined proposals.”
Speaking about the proposals, deputy mayor, Cllr Frazer Lake said: "“Now that most of the city centre connectivity programme has been delivered, introducing new cycle lanes and better pedestrian access, the time is right to address the pressures on our on-street parking provision.
“A lot of thought has gone into these proposals and we welcome as much feedback as possible to help ensure we can continue to refine and improve them before we start looking at a formal traffic order consultation.”
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