PARKING FEE RECEIPTS

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28766, 11 December 1958, Page 18

PARKING FEE RECEIPTS

Figures Up To

Estimates

Parking meter receipts of the City Council are right up to the estimates, which were fixed before'the Budget and the extra Is a gallon tax on petrol.

At the end of September, halfway through the council’s financial year, receipts amounted to £19,956, slightly more than half the estimated revenue c £39,558 for the whole year. The estimate this year was increased from the 1957-58 figure of £ 9 «,292, partly because more r jters had been installed and also because it was expected that motorists had come to value the opportunity metered spaces give for easier parking. When the extra petrol tax was announced, the City Treasurer (Mr L. A. G. Rich) feared that the estimate would oe astray as there would be less motoring. Figures have kept up well since the en of the half-year)/ period, and at the end of November the meters had ccntributed £26,987 worth of silver coins to the special parking meter account. That figure was £6OO above threequarters of the estimate. There has been an increase in the meter takings in the last , week, indicating that Christmas ' business is brisker retailers , earlier this month said the Christmas shopping rush was slow to get under way. Last week, about £857 was collected from the > meters, an increase of about 6 per cent, on an average week in ‘ September.

After Christmas there will be a great slackening of receipts from the city’s meters, and for about three weeks of the holiday period there will be very little revenue. Other revenue of the council, outside rates, comes from a wide variety of sources, and is keeping well up to the estimated receipts for 1958-59, althpug. much of it, ake the Centennial pool receipts and revenue from parks, is seasopal and still to come.