Council u-turn over plans to introduce parking charges at Roseberry Topping, Staithes and Saltburn

Council leader Mary Lanigan told a meeting it had listened to the public and the feedback received from council members, prompting the U-turn from her cabinet. The measures, included in budget proposals for the 2023/24 financial year, saw the publication of an open letter to Coun Lanigan signed by Conservative MPs Jacob Young and Simon Clarke and six Tory members on the council.

The letter said the plans were “short sighted” and an “appalling idea” at a time when the increasing cost of living was affecting people’s ability to make ends meet. Councillors from the main opposition Labour group also criticised the potential negative impact on the local economy, while there was widespread opposition on social media from residents commenting on the plans, which went out to public consultation last month.

All of the new parking charges put forward late last year have been dropped, along with proposed increases for residents’ parking permits, bulky waste disposals and replacement bins. Charges for using public toilets have also been scrubbed out. The cash-strapped council is attempting to balance the books and wants to make millions of pounds worth of savings.

It said it faced a funding shortfall caused by the level of Government funding not matching the current high level of inflation amid rising demand for the care of the elderly and vulnerable children in particular. The council will now seek to update its proposals ahead of a meeting next month to agree the budget, with plans in place to put up the overall local tax bill by 3.99 per cent.

Coun Lanigan said the council still faced having to make “unpalatable decisions”.

She said: “From the many replies we have received it is clear that people do not want these new fees so we will take them out of our budget proposals. We have seen a huge increase in the number of children and the elderly requiring our care and support. We can’t ignore this, they have no-one else to turn to. The Government has talked about a nine per cent increase in spending power – that figure is dependent on council tax bills going up by five per cent. Since 2010, we have had to find savings of around £100m and, as a result, we have around 1,000 fewer staff, but the demand for our services continues to grow.”

Mr Clarke, the MP for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland, said on his Facebook page the Conservatives were grateful that the proposals had been revoked.

He said: “It is of paramount importance that we continue to do all we can to make our town centres as attractive as possible to potential customers and that we encourage the footfall that will help our local businesses thrive.”

Mr Clarke rejected Coun Lanigan’s criticism of central Government’s financing of local authorities, having previously stated that he believed Redcar and Cleveland had a reasonable financial platform in which to operate for the next 12 months.

Councillor Philip Thomson, an independent representing Saltburn, said he was surprised that the introduction of new charges along with increases in existing ones that had been proposed had been “unilaterally withdrawn”.

He said: “I am delighted that the administration has taken note of residents’ concern about introducing astronomic increases in charges at a time of great hardship being experienced by so many.”

Coun Thomson said there had been an absence of information and logical reasoning accompanying the plans and also said it “reflected poorly” on the financial governance in place at the council.

Councillor Alec Brown, the leader of the Labour group on the council, said: “The Labour group are pleased that after public backlash, the council have chosen to remove parking charges from their budget proposals. It was Labour councillors who secured the public consultation on these outrageous charges, and the public have spoken clearly.

“While these plans from the Independent/Lib Dem administration were unacceptable, the council leader is right to point out it is the Conservative Government that has ripped money away from our public services for over a decade, creating huge shortfalls in funding.”

Under the car parking plans new charges were to be introduced at Westgate in Guisborough – which currently is free for two hours with a disc – and numerous other locations including the North Road car park in Loftus, Skelton High Street and Windy Hill, in Marske.

Meanwhile, visitors to the Cleveland Ironstone Mining Museum, in Skinningrove, were due to pay £2 for an hour’s parking, rising to £8 for all day and at Kirkleatham Museum, near Redcar, £1.20 for the first hour, rising to £4.50 all day.

New charges would have also affected residents using council-owned leisure centre car parks and visitors to the likes of Guisborough Forest, Newton under Roseberry and Saltburn.