MANCHESTER City Council are seeking to amend the parking policy they introduced in 2011.
This was the controversial measure of extending on-street car parking into the evening and through Sunday.
The council bulldozed this unpopular measure through despite opposition from almost all the traders and visitors to the city centre we contacted, and despite a 6,300 strong petition from Confidential readers (almost three times the votes cast in the city centre ward during May 2011's local elections).
Just the ticket
This is the council's press release - our comment follows in the yellow box.
Manchester City Council is consulting on proposed changes to city centre on-street parking.
The proposed changes, the first since June 2011, are designed to reduce congestion and balance out demand for parking across the city centre by maintaining the turnover of the best-used spaces while making less-used spaces more attractive.
It is proposed to increase the number of zones from the current two to four.
Those areas with lower demand, zones three and four, would see a price reduction with the hour tariff in zone three reducing from £1.35 per hour to £1.25 per hour and zone four reducing from £1.35 to £1.
In addition, in zone four motorists will have the option to park all day (up to a maximum stay of 10 hours) Monday to Friday with a weekend option to enable vehicles to be parked all day Saturday and Sunday for a total cost of just £10 for the whole weekend, which should be attractive to residents and visitors alike.
The areas of highest demand, zones one and two, will continue to have a two-hour maximum stay and prices would be slightly increased from £2.70 per hour to £3 for zone one and £2.70 to £2.90 for zone two.
The overall average price of parking in a bay, taking into account the whole city centre parking zone, is broadly the same - increasing by less than one per cent.
The changes will also allow for more flexibility in the residents' parking scheme.
Residents will also be given the option to purchase permits quarterly, six-monthly or annually.
We wouldn’t be doing this if we thought it would have a negative impact on city centre visitor numbers.
Analysis of the impact of the last set of changes to on-street parking - introduced in June 2011 - shows that the number of people paying for parking increased by more than a quarter, while improving the availability of on-street parking spaces and reducing the congestion associated with people driving round looking for a vacant spot.
Councillor Nigel Murphy, executive member for environment, said: "Experience has shown us that previous changes do not deter people from parking in the city centre and we wouldn’t be doing this if we thought it would have a negative impact on city centre visitor numbers.
"Doing nothing is not an option, especially with the city’s population – and by extension car ownership – having increased significantly in recent years.
"We believe these proposals will help us make the most sensible use of on-street parking spaces in the city centre.
"They set out to encourage turnover in the most-used spaces, which were always intended for short stays, while encouraging people to take better advantage of less-used spaces on the fringes of the city centre. We believe parking supply and demand will be better balanced as a result, but want to hear people’s views to help us shape the final scheme."
For more information, including a map of the proposed zones, people should visit www.manchester.gov.uk/parking The consultation closes on 25 April, 2013. If adopted, the proposed changes would come into force in June.
Manchester Confidential Comment
Councillor Murphy says "Doing nothing is not an option."
Doing nothing was exactly the option in 2012.
The on-street charging early evening and on Sunday never needed to be applied as it tackled a congestion problem that only existed - according to just about everybody - in the heads of council officers.
Manchester doesn't have a congestion problem in the city centre although the region does, around the M60, on the M6 and in other hotspots.
What the city centre has is a rush hour and then low levels of traffic through the day with heavy activity on key weekend evenings.
Congestion usually happens when something goes wrong, an accident perhaps, or through, bad timing, say a game at City or United banging into rush hour.
This congestion has been made far worse by the council's own cack-handed traffic calming and deflecting measures (click here).
This present parking 'consultation' leading, no doubt, to inevitable delivery, is heroically argued in vigorous, almost dashing, words by Councillor Murphy.
But what do the latest 'proposals' actually add up to?
The council is saying we're lowering to a miniscule degree (10p, who'll notice?) peripheral parking charges in Zone 3, and by a little bit more (35p) in the even more peripheral Zone 4.
To pay for this, or more likely to disguise the desire to grab in more income from drivers, the council is raising parking charges by 30p in Zone 1 and by 20p in Zone 2.
Since exponentially more people want to park in these areas it's gin and tonics all round for council officials.
Clever obfuscation.
Hiding things in plain sight and all that. If the council is announcing proposed increases it should clearly state that in its press releases, that's why the announcement is a bit sneaky.
That said Confidential thinks it's asinine to criticise politicians for 'u-turns' and for moving their position. If they've got it wrong or a situation has changed then it's better they act then stick to their misplaced guns.
In that case Confidential suggests Manchester City Council gets on with admitting that the on-street parking policy is a failure. An experiment too far.
They should press a few computer keys, get the notices on the parking metres re-printed, and hey presto we could have the situation we had up to late 2011: free Sunday on-street parking and free early evening parking.
Gin and tonics all round for city centre businesses and visitors.
We've also asked a question about how much revenue was accrued from on-street car parking the year before the 2011 extension and the year after.
When we have the answer we'll let you know.
The figures should tell us a great deal about whether substantial revenues have been generated, and maybe give us a hint as to why Manchester is so keen to pursue this policy of raising the already controversial charges.
Or indeed, the city council can just come clean and admit that it needs the money to finance other transport initiatives in the city. At least that would be honest because the congestion argument just doesn't wash.
Ticket strength in numbersPS
The photos with this story were taken on Easter Sunday. This was a Bank Holiday Weekend.
Easter Sunday is one of only two days in the calendar along with Christmas Day when all the bigger retailers have to close.
All five vehicles in Museum Street, in the top picture, had parking tickets. Given nothing but museums, bars and restaurants were open then in all probability the drivers and occupants of the cars were leisure visitors to the city.
Of course they should have read the small print on the parking meters. This refers, ambiguously, to no charges being applied on Bank Holidays.
Is this misleading?Strictly this means Mondays but people right across the city seemed to have been caught out by the notion that this applied to Easter generally as a Bank Holiday weekend.
At the same time gangs of wardens, in threes at least, were making hay while the parking fine sun shone.
There's the letter of the law and there's the spirit of the law.
Sometimes the targetting of motorists bringing themselves in to enjoy the city centre seems like entrapment. The number of traffic wardens out and about hinted at the fact that bosses knew more people were likely to be careless while reading the meter rules and regs on an Easter Sunday.
Pound signs revolved in their car parking eyes.
Existing zoning structure - yep these are the council's own maps and they've lost Zone 1
Proposed zoning changes
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