West Northamptonshire Council reveals cheaper town centre car parking is an ‘employment benefit’

West Northamptonshire Council has revealed cheaper town centre car parking is an “employment benefit” for all staff – and the costs are covered by the council.

This comes after questions were raised about how much council workers and councillors pay to park, following WNC proposals to increase town centre parking for visitors, which many businesses and residents have spoken out against.

Chronicle & Echo put these questions to the council, who confirmed that a council staff parking scheme arrangement has applied since November 2022 in its current form, which evolved following a period of free parking during the pandemic.

The price structure is £20 a month to park at the Mayorhold car park only, £40 to add St John’s multi storey, and £50 to add access to the undercroft car parks – beneath the office buildings at One Angel Square and the Guildhall.

While this arrangement applies to all staff, parking for councillors on official business is free – such as when they are attending evening meetings often held in council offices, where members can park in the undercrofts.

For anyone else, including businesses owners, employees of local businesses and town centre visitors, it currently costs £120 per month for a parking permit for council-owned town centre car parks – which will increase to £132 per month if the budget proposals are approved at the full council meeting next Wednesday (February 22).

Councillor Jonathan Nunn, leader of West Northamptonshire Council, said: “The parking schemes offered to WNC staff based in Northampton formed part of employment benefits offered by the previous Northampton Borough and Northamptonshire County councils.

“As it was custom and practice to provide parking facilities for those willing to pay for season tickets, we decided to continue with this when the previous councils were replaced by our new council, during a time where staff felt particular uncertainty.

“There is a cost to the council but we always have to balance the challenge of attracting staff to hard-to-recruit jobs. This is particularly true for social workers for example – if we could not recruit, the council and taxpayers would be forced instead to increase salaries to accommodate, or use agency workers at a higher cost because this would be built into all salaries and not just those who needed and opted to park in town.”

The council also runs this parking scheme as “many staff work outside the office some of the time, attend meetings with partners, and respond to emergencies” – therefore they need to be “highly responsive and may need to go at short notice”.

“For that reason, and recognising part time workers, we have offered more flexible parking to reflect this,” said Cllr Nunn.

In West Northamptonshire Council’s response to this newspaper when asked about the scheme, the statement also said: “Any business in West Northants could decide to do such a scheme.”

Any business could purchase a full price parking season ticket from West Northamptonshire Council to sell to their employees for a reduced rate as an employment benefit.

However for small, independent businesses like The Eccentric Englishman in St Giles’ Street, this just would not be possible.

Owner Liz Cox currently pays £180 per month to park in St John’s multi storey for the eight hours she is required to be at work each day from Monday to Saturday.

She employs seven people, four of which pay to park in the town centre when they come to work – as well as her partner who she runs the business with.

When asked if she would be able to implement a scheme for her employees to be able to pay less to park, Liz said: “It wouldn’t be possible as a small and comparatively new business.

“We don’t bring in enough to pay out that much and it just wouldn’t be feasible. Our staff members would buy one themselves if they could afford to.”

The business owner believes those bringing money into the town centre do not get anything in return for their efforts.