Intu Uxbridge has come under fire from shoppers after the cost of parking at the centre increased by as much as 150 per cent.
It now costs a minimum of £2 to park for two hours at the centre’s 1,600 space multi-storey car park, after the ‘up to one hour’ tariff was scrapped.
And the Sunday parking rate, which was £1, has risen to £2.50, prompting complaints to the management.
Charmaine Grimes, a regular user of intu, said: “I did wonder at the time when they were installing fancy new payment machines and redecorating who would be paying for this? But I should have known it would be Joe Public of course.
“There are no concessions for Hillingdon residents or pensioners and to visit the cinema is an expensive outing without adding on the cost of extortionate parking costs. To spend any decent amount of time in Uxbridge now will cost you a guaranteed £4 – an increase of £1.50.”
On Mondays to Saturdays, previous charges started at £1.20 for one hour up to £16.00 for seven hours.
Intu say they have now simplified what were eight different charging periods into five, starting at £2 for two hours up to £15.00 for 24 hours. On Sundays there is now a fixed charge of £2.50 all day.
John Bates was also disappointed when he saw the changes and wonders how many others felt the same.
He said: “Previously, parking for an hour or less from Monday to Saturday cost £1.20. This has now gone up to £2.
“Admittedly they have increased the time allowed to cover a two-hour period but I find an increase of around 65 per cent a rip off.
“The Sunday parking rate has increased a staggering 150 per cent to £2.50. I expected an increase when I saw work recently being carried out installing new ticket machines but I didn’t expect this.”
Mr Bates has refused to use the car park at intu since, and uses an alternative, cheaper option in the town centre.
He added: "By all means they should make improvements to the car park but that’s not an excuse to rip off users with massive price hikes! Some people need to nip in during our lunch break while at work, £1.20 for an hour was acceptable to me, £2 was not.
"Admittedly you get two hours but, woe betide you if you go a minute over two hours, it then costs £4!"
Laurie Taylor, general manager of intu Uxbridge, said there had been only ‘a small number of comments’ about the changes to the car park and tariffs.
He said: “We regularly review the fees that we charge in our car parks. While we always want to be able to offer our visitors good value for money, we also need to ensure that our car park tariffs cover the cost of regular upkeep and improvements, such as the newly-installed entry barriers and payment machines.
“We also consider factors such as average length of car park stay and in response to this we have simplified the charging structure.
“We believe that our car park prices compare favourably to other private car parks in the city centre and suit the needs of the majority of our visitors.
“We will continue to listen to comments and will of course take all feedback on board to ensure we’re listening and responding to the needs of our visitors.”
