LOCAL councils have been warned to stop using town centre parking charges and fines as a cash cow.

Councils are set to rake in almost £700m this year from car parking, despite being told by government that it should not be used as a revenue-raising venture.

It does not take a genius to work out the link between exorbitant car parking charges and the decline of our town centre shops.

Marcus Jones, the high streets minister, said last week that unfair parking charges are pushing up the cost of living and undermining our town centres.

Councils, the minister added, should be focusing their efforts on supporting town centres and motorists, rather than on raising money through “over-zealous” parking enforcements. He is absolutely right.

A town in Wales recently saw trade in its town centre shops rise by 50 per cent, when the council adopted a free parking policy in the town (after its parking machines were stolen). It is simply common sense.

In this age of online shopping and out-of-town malls with their free parking, town centres with their expensive parking and their enforcement officers on patrol stand little chance of competing.

I feel really sorry for the owners of town centre shops, who must gnash their teeth in despair at the lack of support they receive from the councils to which they pay such high business rates.

The last time I parked in an Ulverston car park, I was shocked by how expensive it has become. Town centre car parking is rapidly becoming the equivalent of a hotel minibar.

They both provide a basic service which has become so ludicrously expensive that only the reckless or the desperate will use them. I wouldn’t dream of paying £12 for a minibar gin and tonic.

And why pay the price of a bottle of wine to leave your car in a car park for a few hours, when you can leave it for free in a supermarket or shopping centre car park?

Barrow has serious problems with its town centre – as anyone who has recently walked down the bottom end of Dalton Road will be aware.

And yet shoppers are expected to pay disproportionately for the privilege of browsing among all those discount shops, the charity shops, the pawnbroker shops and the takeaways. Not to mention all those empty shops.

Ulverston has some marvellous little shops these days. But not enough. And if it wasn’t for the town’s very healthy pub trade, it would be struggling even more than it is.

The outdoor market has become an embarrassment – and the other Saturday I noticed that the whole of New Market Street was closed off to motorists (denying them some free parking) for said market – which consisted in that street of one key-cutting van.

Needless to say, the car park was practically deserted. Cause and effect in all its glory. Our councils must heed the words of the high streets minister and stop charging people to come into our towns.

Napoleon once described Britain as a nation of shopkeepers.

If our councils and their cash cow approach to town centre parking have their way, we won’t be that for much longer.