Cleckheaton businesses unite over controversial parking charge plans which could see staff having to pay £1,500 a year to go to work

The council confirmed last week that residents, shoppers and business owners would have a 21-day consultation period to submit any objections to the scheme, which would see charges brought into Cleckheaton’s four main free council-run car parks at Crown Street, St Johns, the Town Hall and Westgate.

A review of parking tariffs across all Kirklees’ council-operated off-street car parks and on-street parking bays got the green light from cabinet in November last year as part of the council’s efforts to address a £47m deficit.

However, the proposals, which include drivers having to pay 80p for a one-hour stay and £6.50 for a full day’s parking, unsurprisingly, have proved unpopular among businesses in the town.

“It is absolutely beyond a joke,” says Mark Hepworth, who owns Robert Openshaw Fine Jewellery, which has been a part of the Cleckheaton business scene since 1885.

Mark, who is also the secretary of Spenborough Chamber of Trade and Commerce, which promotes and supports businesses in the Spen Valley, has helped to create the Stop The Metres campaign, which is being promoted in the town’s shop windows and on social media.

Crunching the numbers, he says: “From four car parks with a total of 293 spaces based on the information from Kirklees’ website, if they’re all full, collectively, over 52 weeks, that’s £667,212 of income.

“The reality is it might be half that. But that is money which is being spent by customers which isn’t going into a town that has had its fair share of decline and that has been forgotten about by Kirklees.

“It asset strips. It’s shut the town hall. It doesn’t invest in the town. The best we have had in the past 12 months are some litter bins. It would be a lot easier to swallow if the council said they would reinvest it back into the town.”

Is it going to affect Robert Openshaw as a business?

“Yes it is,” Mark replies. “It’s got to do. It is going to affect every business. People will have decisions to make. Ultimately, if there’s a potential £667,000 a year to extract out of people who live, work and shop in the town, then it’s money that’s not going to be spent in the town.”

Nichola Garland, treasurer of the Chamber of Trade and owner of Headlines Hair and Beauty Studio on Westgate, also revealed an eye-catching figure.

She said: “When we have had no charges whatsoever, to go to 80p is ridiculous. We are just trying to spread the word as it’s going to cost £1,500 a year to park. It’s a lot of money. It’s a holiday when all is said and done.

“We’re trying to get footfall into the town, not put people off.”

Walking into Marshalls Coffee House and Bakery at the bottom of the town’s famous “rubber tunnel”, there is only one topic of conversation among customers in the bustling cafe.

“It is a very hot topic,” says owner Faye Doherty, who is also the president of the Chamber of Trade group as well as owner of The Kiosk, which stands opposite her cafe in Victoria Court.

“For us, our concern is that people are going to be very conscious of time. If they’ve got half an hour left they’ll be in and out and spend less or they won’t call in at all as they’ll be conscious of not going over the time they’ve paid. We will lose business.

“It’s a very negative thing. We’re in the rubber tunnel and we have already lost the Halifax bank in January. That was quite a significant impact. We have got the town hall closure - we had a lot of groups that used to come and visit that now don’t come in.

“We have already had the impact of those two things, I just think this would be the nail in the coffin. Town is very, very quiet as it is.”

She adds: “Even the people who don’t necessarily drive have got concerns because they understand they are going to lose their businesses.

“We have a regular set of ten people who come in every single morning and, from a social aspect, that is the only time they see people on a daily basis. If we are not there as a business, they are going to lose that.”

At Blend Cafe Bar, which has been open for 17 years on Cross Crown Street, owner Chris Culshaw is worried about the possibility of losing staff.

He revealed: “We have a chef who does four days a week and it could cost £1,300 to £1,400 a year to park. She has mentioned she may not be able to stay with us because she can’t afford it. That’s the worst case for me.

“Do we look at car sharing? Splitting it between us? We are constantly talking about it.”

On Cheapside, Chris’ wife Sue has run Glitterati Boutique for nearly six years.

“It’s just all bonkers, sad and upsetting,” she says. “We want to drive people in, not drive customers out. That is the message.”

Asked what her main issues were, she responded: “Footfall and people who work in the town.

“The car park opposite Blend (Crown Street), by 8.30am, is completely full, top to bottom. Where are those people? Because the shops aren’t open. They’re working. They’ve come to work. And they’ve come early to get a parking space.

“But it’s £1,500 a year to park. It’s not sustainable. Will they have to find jobs elsewhere? It will impact workers as well as the economy. Our staff at Blend won’t pay it. They can’t afford to. They’ve just had a wage rise with the minimum wage going up - but that won’t even cover a week’s parking.”

While appreciating Kirklees Council’s current financial situation, Stephanie Norris, owner of Joshua Adams Menswear on Market Street, echoes these sentiments around workers being forced to pay to park.

She says: “We are fortunate that we have a little bit of parking but we don’t have enough parking for the number of staff that we employ, so some of them have to use parking in and around Cleckheaton and it’s going to be over £30 a week for them to park.

“Where’s that going to come from? Will there be some concessions or scheme where workers could get a reduced parking charge or have a permit? It’s a worry, especially with the cost of living. If there is some reward scheme or compensation to staff or customers, we’ve got to pay for it. Where is that going to come from in the challenging climate that we are in?”

And what about those workers who volunteer their services at shops in the town?

John Knight, assistant manager at the Age UK charity shop, says: “We rely on volunteers. They work for free. It seems really unfair that they should have to pay to park the car. We have six volunteers who work in our shop who really rely on their cars. They come and give their time for free to support our charitable cause.

“If the proposed parking charges go ahead, these volunteers would have to pay on average £17 per week out of their own pocket - just to come to work for free.”

He adds: “A lot of people are concerned. There is not much going on in Cleckheaton, and free parking is one of the main attractions. We are worried about footfall coming into the town and specifically into the shop.

“Particularly when people are only here for half an hour at a time, 80p an hour seems quite steep. We are also worried about receiving the kind donations over the door and are worried about customers coming into the shop just for a browse.”

Kim Barnes-Evans, who set up recruitment firm THE Agency on Railway Street in 2006, said: “For us we worry that it will impact our own staff and our candidates who are coming in to register with us. A candidate coming in to register with us can be with us for up to two and a half hours in some cases and if we are telling them it’s going to cost them however much an hour to park, I think we may get some reluctance.

“Additionally, for those people who would normally come into town, if they soon have to pay for parking, then they are probably going to consider going to one of the bigger shopping centres, such as The White Rose, because they won’t have to pay parking charges there and also, they will have a wider choice of shops.

“That is then going to have a huge knock-on effect in the local community and the local shop owners in Cleckheaton – many of whom are struggling anyway.”

Barrie Naylor only opened Cleckheaton Antiques last September but he is fully aware of the impact the proposed fees could have on the community.

He said: “The parking charges are going to make a big difference and have a big impact on our businesses. And not a good one. It is going to be detrimental.

“People are not going to come.”

Bethan Aitken, owner of The Lash Girl, a salon on Cross Crown Street, believes her staff and customers, who come into the town from all over West Yorkshire, “shouldn’t have to pay” the planned charges.

She says: “There was only one other salon in town when we started in 2019 so we have brought a lot of clientele here that use the car park and they have all said it is going to be a massive issue. It’s massively going to affect our customers.

“The car park being really accessible and free was one of the things we could offer. We’re not going to be paying nearly £7 when we are bringing people into Cleckheaton. Our clients come from Leeds, Wakefield, Pontefract, Castleford - we are bringing people from all over to Cleckheaton. We shouldn’t have to pay it and we don’t want our customers to pay it.

“It’s another added expense on top of everything else.”

Andrew Pinnock, Liberal Democrat councillor for the Cleckheaton ward, set up a petition with a number of businesses in the town against the plans last year which has gained more than 6,000 signatures but he is encouraging the public to comment on the now open consultation.

He said: “It’s all totally unnecessary it seems to me. Introducing parking charges does not help the vitality and viability of the town centre. It’s all very well working out how many car parking spaces and so on there are and saying, ‘Well, if there’s an occupied X amount of time then we get an income of Y,’ but it completely ignores the fact that some people will vote with their feet and go somewhere else.

“That is a very serious threat in the minds of a lot of shopkeepers in Cleckheaton. That’s largely why we got a good response from them when we asked them to have the petition forms. They are worried. They are worried for their livelihoods.”

Responses to the consultation can be sent by email to: [email protected] quoting reference DEV/D119-122/Car Park

The closing date for objections is Thursday, May 2.