Leeds car parking: Man had to find new job after 'ridiculous' price increase at Burley Road car park

Kate McCann said that her and her fiancé Paul used to park for the day at the car park on Burley Road for £6.45 before going to the same place of work together. However after the price for the same amount of time increased to £10.25 earlier this month, Paul decided to find another job and drop Miss McCann at work so they didn’t have to pay.

Leeds City Council has said that the couple’s previous price was down to an “anomaly” with the previous parking provider and said it will “honour that lower priced fee” for the car park users going forward.

Miss McCann said that her and Paul used to have to drive in to Leeds from Birkenshaw due to a lack of available public transport and would arrive at the car park at “around 8am”. She said that Paul would work 10 hour shifts but they would pay for 11 hours in the car park in case they were held up at work.

She said that the previous car park operator RingGo allowed them to use a “start stop” service, whereby they could cancel the parking charge if they went back to the car earlier than planned and only pay for that amount of time. She said: “We had both moved to working there in the previous months and had gone from weekly to monthly pay so were very conscientious on what we spent.”

Miss McCann said that she and other users of the car park received a text the night before saying that the car parking providers and cost of using the service was set to change. The car parking changes then came into place on January 10 and though it was advertised by the council that the prices would only be increasing by a maximum of £1.20, Miss McCann found that she was being charged nearly £4 more to stay at the car park for the day.

Miss McCann said: “We were anticipating it going up slightly and I get that the council have to claw back some of their losses but to put it up that much is just ridiculous. It’s scandalous.

"We got to work and my partner said there’s no way we can justify spending over £50 a week to come to work. The manager said there’s no way they could offer us a parking space so Paul has quit and got another job elsewhere.”

She said that now Paul drops her off at the office before going to his new place of work

A spokesperson for Leeds City Council said: “After looking into this issue we can see there was an anomaly at this location with our previous parking app provider regarding the charging for those parking for more than 10 hours a day and that stay going beyond 6pm. In the spirit of fairness we will continue to honour that lower priced fee with the evening charge not included. This will only apply for those agreed conditions and at all other times the normal pricing will be charged.”