Daily parking tickets in Elgin to double from January 2024 as part of Moray Council's parking charges revision plan

PARKING charges in several of Elgin's car parks will increase from January, as part of Moray Council's package to tackle parking issues in the town centre.

Under the revised plan, parking charges in Elgin will undergo significant changes. Notably, the cost for the first hour of parking in all car parks throughout the town will be standardised at £1, except for Cooper Park, which will continue to offer free parking for the first 30 minutes.

For parking durations of up to 2 hours, 2-3 hours, or 4-10 hours, the charges at medium and high-turnover car parks will remain unchanged. However, for low-turnover car parks, including Batchen Lane Car Park and Lossie Green, the daily parking ticket price will increase from £1 to £2 per day. Similar increases will apply to weekly and monthly parking tickets, while the daily charge for parking at the Elgin Railway Station car park will remain at £2.

These changes are anticipated to result in an overall increase in revenue of approximately £414,000. Moray Council has also clarified that there will be no further adjustments to the parking charges during the 2024/25 financial year.

Leader of Moray Council, Cllr Kathleen Robertson, said;“This is a tricky issue that has been referred up to full council to address the concerns raised with us. We’ve listened to the views of a wide range of stakeholders, including community councillors and local business interests, as well as Visit Moray Speyside, Police Scotland, Fire Scotland, and UHI through stakeholder engagement.

“We’ve had to balance the concerns about parking in Elgin with the impact revising charges could have and any further effect will be closely monitored by officers through the quarterly parking occupancy surveys and monthly monitoring of the tickets issued for each car park.

“It’s appreciated that there was an overall acceptance by stakeholders that making the first hour of parking free in Elgin is not financially viable for the council. We’re also making no change to the Railway Car Park charge to encourage more people to use this car park as a park and ride option for further onward journeys.”

A review of accessible parking will be brought to a future meeting of the council.

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