PLANS to charge drivers for parking in Barrhead's off-street car parks have been questioned.

A proposal submitted to East Renfrewshire Council (ERC) by its director of environment, Andrew Cahill, has detailed the need to introduce charges at seven council-run sites due to competing demands for parking in the area amongst shoppers, residents and commuters.

The proposals include Barrhead's Carlibar Road near the train station and the yet to be built Barrhead South station.

The local authority has received complaints from Busby homeowners who are unhappy with a surge in the number of motorists from out with the region parking at Busby Station because of the introduction of charges around train stations in nearby East Kilbride.

ERC has agreed in principle to set aside £155,000 from its capital fund to progress the plans with a view to bringing the charges into force by next year or early 2018. The proposal is part of planned council savings and aims to generate £200,000 from the 2017/18 financial year onwards.

The car parks also include Clarkston Goods Yard, Giffnock Station, Merryvale Avenue, Patterton Country Park and Neilston’s Kingston Road and Carlibar Road in Barrhead, as well as a future Barrhead South train station.

Each of the locations have been identified by the Roads and Transportation service as they are used by both commuters and shoppers, offer little room for displacement parking and are large enough to provide financial return on investment.

However, the Parking Review Team from East Renfrewshire Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB) has challenged the reasoning behind the report.

Bernard McCabe, CAB advisor, questioned the plan’s feasibility and said: “While the report says this has been prompted by complaints from residents that people from out with the area are using these streets, there must be a lot of people from East Renfrewshire who park here as well.

“It’s going to discomfort them considerably and put more strain on the roads. It would be wrong to assume that it’s only people from out with East Renfrewshire who will be affected.”

The report states all necessary charging equipment would be purchased through a national framework agreement.

Mr McCabe added: “They’re talking about economic returns, but if they’re going to displace people from these car parks into the surrounding areas, that’s going to create more congestion rather than less. Consultation is going to be vitally important in this.”

A spokeswoman for ERC said: “The large number of commuters benefitting from our free off-street parking means our parking spaces are congested for long periods of time each day.

“We are proposing to introduce parking charges to help manage the turnover of parking spaces more effectively. No decisions have been made and in the next couple of months we will engage in a full and extensive consultation with our community partners and local residents to encourage as many people as possible to share their views on the proposals.”