Parking charges for Hartlepool blue badge holders 'need to be looked at again'

As part of the budget for 2022-23, Hartlepool Borough Council chiefs voted to bring in charges for blue badge holders parking in local authority car parks from April.

Although three hours free parking is currently in place in all Hartlepool town centre car parks as part of a wider Tees Valley Combined Authority initiative, worries have been raised over the blue badge charges.

At the latest full council meeting, Labour’s Councillor Ben Clayton said the decision “needs to be looked at again”.

He said: “At the moment we’ve got an absolutely ludicrous situation in the town centre.

“Disabled motorists park in their disabled bays, walk from their car to the machine, press the button, get the free ticket, walk back to their car, put it on the windscreen.

“They then walk back to where the machine is to go in the shopping centre, it’s ridiculous.”

He also feared the council could be breaching national legislation by charging blue badge holders to park in on-street bays.

Hayley Martin, the council’s chief solicitor, said she would look into the concerns, adding: “My understanding is that we can charge for parking on our council owned land, but I’m happy to look at it further.”

Conservative Councillor Tom Cassidy, chair of neighbourhood services, said other local authorities have already introduced similar blue badge parking charging arrangements and more are considering it.

There are an estimated 6,000 blue badge holders in Hartlepool.

They added blue badge users would “continue to have access to alternative opportunities for parking using blue badge “on-street” exemptions around the affected car parks.