Overnight parking in busy Newcastle car parks to launch in November alongside extra security option
Overnight parking in two popular Newcastle city centre car parks will launch next month, alongside extra charges to pay for heightened security.
Newcastle City Council has confirmed that it will keep the Dean Street and Grainger Town multi-storey car parks open from Friday mornings until midnight on Sundays, under a six-month trial project.
The scheme, which will start on November 7, is intended to offer more safe parking locations for workers on night shifts in city centre bars, restaurants and hotels. Both car parks currently shut their gates at midnight, while other multi-storeys in the city centre are closed at 10pm.
To fund overnight security patrols and extra energy costs from the extended hours, the council is imposing extra parking charges of 50p per hour between the current cut-off point of 7pm and midnight at Grainger Town and Dean Street. Midnight to 8am parking will be free of charge.
Labour councillor Juna Sathian, the council’s cabinet member for climate and transport, said: “Night-time workers and Pubwatch – which represents around 100 venues – have both backed our proposal, which came following a request by NE1, to offer more safe, accessible parking.
“To meet that strong demand and provide more options for visitors to our vibrant city, particularly during the busy Christmas period, we will now move swiftly to offer more than 580 spaces, in secure, patrolled locations, on the busiest nights.”
A public consultation on the plans produced only one letter of objection, which raised concerns about the impact of extra parking charges on minimum wage workers and a potential for adding to anti-social behaviour problems.
However, one of three comments in support of the scheme came from a city centre worker who said that public transport ends before their shift is over and that finding parking nearby was “challenging”.
Stephen Patterson, chief executive of business improvement district company NE1 Ltd, previously said that the move would be “a crucial way to support businesses, especially the workers who are the backbone of the night-time economy”.