Councillors have held off implementing new parking proposals in Ayr after it was revealed that free parking cost South Ayrshire Council £370,000  in lost income.

This includes a revamp of resident parking permits in the town centre.

Jane Corrie, Head of Ayrshire Roads Alliance (ARA), told councillors that officers were seeking to change the ‘outdated’ residents permit scheme that has been running since the 1970s.

Proposals include increasing the prices for the first time in more than a dozen years.

She said: “There are two residence permit schemes which operate in Ayr. The town centre residence permit scheme has applied since the introduction of on-street parking charges in 2012, and officers seek to amend the existing scheme by applying the first price increase since the scheme was introduced.

 “There is also a historic residence permit scheme which applies to certain residential streets located around the periphery of the town centre.

“This scheme is outdated and has remained in its current format since its introduction in the 1970s. Officers recommend relevant amendments through the introduction of a modern charging system.”

The proposal also sought to include and remove certain streets and add visitor and carer permits as well as optional business permits.

Councillors were told that ‘without these parking control measures, residential streets may become subject to widespread non-residential parking to the detriment of residents and their visitors’.

She also presented proposals to expand the existing parking regulations to the west of Wellington Square and Charlotte Street, including a reduction in the cost of resident permits from £60 to £45 while, at the same time, reducing the length of stay from three hours to 90 minutes.

The proposals would have still required full consultation with residents.

Ms Corrie told the cabinet that the introduction of the free two hour parking initiative in the town centre had resulted in the loss of £370k, adding that ARA would continue to look at the future management of the council’s free car parks as well as the two hour parking scheme.

One of the recommendations was to allow officers to begin work on traffic orders that would be required to allow the plans to progress. Ms Corrie said that the consultation would not provide enough evidence of majority support for the proposals.

However, the application for a traffic order would allow the council to progress the plans, while ensuring a wider statutory consultation.

Depute Leader Councillor Bob Pollock suggested that the potential issues around the loss of income was concerning and suggested that the request to begin work on the traffic order not be approved, pending the wider review of designated parking in the town centre.

He said: “Anything to do with car parking is, as everyone’s aware, is always quite contentious.

“I think the concern I would have is around the £370,000 that were already in deficit. I would have concerns about actually approving this report just now.

“We actually need to address that deficit and the budget. I don’t think we are in the position where we can start an economic impact assessment to see about the benefit of that.

“I think what we need is a wider review of car parking charges in the whole of the Ayr area and would actually argue that it needs to be beyond that and cover the whole of South Ayrshire to try and make up this deficit and to better understand the impact.

” It may well be that if it does benefit businesses we would still want to keep it in some form.”

Councillor Ian Davis said that some of the communities had indicated that in some cases the plans weren’t practical or the reason for changing the parking regulations was no longer an issue.

The cabinet agreed to postpone a decision until the wider review is undertaken.