The 2024/5 Budget included proposals to introduce charges in three of Birmingham’s parks: Lickey Hills Country Park, Sheldon Country Park and Sutton Park.
This budget assumes delivery in July 2025 and the MTFP includes this budget assumption. The implementation of these schemes has met with delay therefore the income of £381k will be achieved through the implementation of these charges in 2026-27 onwards.
Cabinet approved the use of £981k of capital contingencies to progress the schemes on 13th May 2025.
Within the aforementioned approval, Cabinet delegated authority to the Cabinet Member for Environment and Transport to introduce a scheme for charging and enforcement at Lickey Hills Country Park utilising private parking arrangements (Minute number 3.8 refers (Cabinet report, “Outcome from informal consultations on proposed parking charges in parks and proposal to progress formal Traffic Regulation Orders (Off-street Parking Places Orders”) approved 13th May).
Subject to approval of this report, a private parking operator will be sought utilising a public sector framework for the machine supply, signage installation, maintenance and ongoing management and enforcement of the scheme at Lickey Hills Country Park.
The overall approach is to ask Park users to contribute towards the costs of maintaining these parks and green spaces through paying for parking.
Informal consultation for the proposed charging scheme took place between 15th November and 6th December 2024. The findings from the informal consultation indicated reduced parking charges were preferable (and may lessen the impact of potential displacement parking), a 30 minute grace period of free parking was preferred (to allow parents to drop off/pick up children from the groups that operate within the park) and that volunteers who assist with the upkeep of the park should receive free parking permits. In line with the feedback from the informal consultation we have amended and improved the scheme from the original proposals.
To allow for an informed decision, we invited views and objections from park visitors, residents, stakeholders and ward members as part of the consultation (the consultation exercise was non-statutory however). A report detailing the objections (and the Council’s responses) can be found in Appendix A (Lickey Hills Country Park objection report).
As Worcestershire County Council, in its capacity as the respective traffic authority for Lickey Hills Country Park, has advised it could not assist with the production of a TRO, an alternative regime for charging and enforcement for the parking scheme at the Lickey Hills site has been established. Details of how this scheme will be sourced can be found in the Procurement section of this report.
Parking restrictions introduced as part of the proposed schemes will be subject to a separate statutory consultation, and follow the process set out above i.e. objection report for consideration and final decision. This consultation will be completed in partnership with Worcestershire County Council as the responsible traffic authority.
This report gives effect to the prior Cabinet decision about the charging scheme for Lickey Hills Country Park, following the public consultation.