Middlewich's mayor has said the town council will continue to fight for control of all its car parks amid fears Cheshire East may try to impose charges in the future.

Cllr Colin Coules (Ind) was speaking to the Local Democracy Reporting Service after the chair of Cheshire East's highways committee last week revealed the council would probably have to 're-visit' parking charges to help balance the books.

Middlewich is one of a handful of towns in the borough which doesn't have to pay to park on Cheshire East car parks.

The town council has approached Cheshire East twice in the recent past about taking responsibility for its own car parks, but Cllr Coules and Cllr Carol Bulman (Lab) said Cheshire East had agreed to offload two of the three in the town, but not the one on Civic Way, which has recently been re-surfaced.

Cllr Coules told the LDRS this week: "We would prefer to adopt all our own car parks and manage them ourselves.

Cllr Colin Coules

"Nicky (town council clerk) has already been in touch with Cheshire East asking again why all three car parks are not being offered and just the two that are in poor condition."

Speculation is rife about possible changes to the car parking policy following comments made by highways committee chair Cllr Craig Browne (Alderley Edge, Ind) at a meeting on Thursday.

Highways is facing an estimated £500,000 variance at the end of 2022/23, compared to the budget set, because of soaring inflation and reduced income from parking.

Cllr Browne said as well as reducing costs the committee would also have to look at increasing revenue 'and I fear that, amongst other things, clearly, that is going to mean re-visiting parking charges, which this committee has discussed previously'.

He said when looking at the books 'it's just so painfully obvious that a reduction in parking income is the single biggest contributor to that variance at this time'.

Middlewich – together with all the towns which were under the former Congleton Borough Council, with the exception of Congleton – doesn't have any council-owned pay and display car parks.

Towns like Crewe, Nantwich, Knutsford and Macclesfield – which were under the former Crewe & Nantwich and Macclesfield borough councils, have been charged by Cheshire East for years for parking.

Cllr Bulman said she didn't believe Cheshire East would benefit financially from introducing charges in Middlewich because the car parks weren't busy enough.

"I don't see how they would make any money," she told the LDRS.

Cllr Browne did not give any indication at last week's meeting of Cheshire East's highways committee of when any review would be considered.

An attempt last year to change the policy was scrapped after the highways committee voted by eight to five against the proposal to go out to public consultation on the proposals.