It feels like the Labour Administration at Crawley Borough Council like to make life harder for Crawley’s motorists at every turn. In February, the Labour leadership’s budget contained bringing forward a ‘parking strategy’ that including greater paid-for parking, which had an income target of £388,000 a year.

Equating to over £1,000 a day, no explanation was given as to how the Council would raise it. Because of this and eye-watering rises in fees and charges, as well as cuts to services, we Conservatives did not support this year’s Council budget.

Now we have been told. Parking charges are planned to be introduced at our K2 leisure centre, at the Hawth Theatre and at Goffs Park. This particularly feels unfair when already paying to use facilities at K2 or seeing a show at The Hawth.

I encourage resident to take part in the Council’s consultation that runs until June 1. They say they will explore free parking for limited time for registered users, and long-stay parking provisions and reserved spaces for drop-off and pick-up. However, the introduction and running of parking controls and charging, plus creating all these complexities that didn’t previously exist, has its own cost and that then needs to be recouped by those paying the charges.

Cllr Duncan Crow - Conservative Group Leader at Crawley Borough Council

It also creates complexity and potentially anxiety for those using the facilities, detracting somewhat from the event one’s hoping to enjoy. Most of us have a bad experience of parking in a car park and falling foul of a myriad of the terms and conditions, with the threat of a hefty fine never far away.

We are told the K2 and Hawth parking charges will be £1.50 for up to four hours, but we all know that once the concept of charging is introduced, it only ever goes up. For example, last November the Council hiked up the parking charges at Tilgate Park by 17%.

All this is in stark contrast to Conservative-run West Sussex County Council, who last October froze all their parking charges for a year, including parking permits, on-street parking metres, and their car parks like at Crawley Library.

Political opinion: Cllr Duncan Crow: K2 and Hawth parking charges are a step too far