A Cheshire East councillor who represents Alsager has hit out at plans to charge motorists to park in the town saying it would have serious implications for retail and has been rushed through without thought.

Alsager councillor Rod Fletcher (Lib Dem) said there had been a complete lack of thought over plans to introduce charges in his town, saying it had been a "rushed consultation."

"It will have a very, very serious effect on the shops, and also the residential streets around the car parks because the office workers, they'll park on surrounding streets," Cllr Fletcher told the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

"It's unclear how it will affect parents of children from Highfields School, because they park in Fairview Car Park waiting for their children to come out of school.

"There's no proper access to the school, so I would hope they're not going to have to pay 80p a day every time they pick the children up."

He said the former Congleton Borough Council, which was abolished with the formation of Cheshire East in 2009, had provided the Fanny's Croft Car Park for the use of residents who couldn't park outside their homes when the double yellow lines had been put down on Audley Road, so where were they going to park now.

"There's a complete lack of thought on this," said Cllr Fletcher.

And he asked when the surveys of the car parks had been carried out.

"Surely they haven't been surveying the car parks during Covid times when, on some of the main car parks in Alsager during lockdown, there was hardly any cars on them and the shops were closed," he said.

"So how, how have they arrived at this decision, if they haven't been consulting or surveying, car parks? How do they know what's needed? And the fact is, they don't.

"It's a rushed consultation. It doesn't take into effect local circumstances, which it should be doing."

Cllr Fletcher's views have been mirrored by another Cheshire East councillor Jonathan Parry (Lab) who said he and his fellow Middlewich councillors will fight the Labour/Independent run council over its plans to end free parking.

"It's going to be absolutely devastating to the town centre," Cllr Parry said. "We're dealing with small local shops, which have been hit very, very heavily during Covid.

"Putting charges into a town centre like Middlewich is not a way of getting trade into it. The car parks are never full. The High Street is dying a death."

As revealed last week by Alsager Nub News, a report due to go before tomorrow's meeting of the highways and transport committee tomorrow (Tuesday) has several changes afoot.

It states: "For historic reasons, the borough has operated with inconsistent car parking tariffs and charging mechanisms, with some places still providing free car parking.

"These arrangements are unfair and represent a significant opportunity in relation to the revenue that could be created to support the strategic transport and highway related objectives of the council."

The new pay and display policy, if approved, will see zonal tariffs introduced in towns and villages across the borough and all areas will pay the same.

Central car parks, that is those within 300m or a five minute walk from the town centre, will be in zone one – the highest charging band – and charges will start at 40p for up to 30 minutes or 80p for the first hour.

'Edge of centre or out of centre' car parks will be within the cheaper zone two and charges will be 30p for the first 30 minutes and 60p for up to an hour.

The highest fee – for those parking between six to 10 hours – will be £5.60 in zone one and £3.40 in zone two.

Cheshire East says the previous policy, where some towns had paid for years to park and others hadn't, was unfair.

The council will go out to consultation on the proposals before a final decision is made.