Residents in Tavington Road are paying to park outside their own houses (Image: Google)
Homeowners in a Merseyside community are “in despair” as they are forced to pay £1,400 to park outside their own homes.
Those living in a neighbourhood in Halewood used to pay about £300 a year to park on the road. Now they are being forced to pay four times that.
Graham Perrins, 58, who lives on Tavington Road, told the he is considering selling his house due to the increase which is driving residents to the brink.
He said: “It drives me to despair because I don’t know what bill I’m going to expect each year. I don’t know what I’m actually paying for and I can’t get hold of anyone to explain properly.”
While homes on the road and neighbouring Applewood Grove are freehold, parking spaces are managed by maintenance company FirstPort.
The fees are driving residents to the brink (Image: Google)
The Hampshire-based property management firm said that some “additional fees were mistakenly charged” but that homeowners would be reimbursed with “credit notes”.
Homeowner Greg Morgan, 39, said: “We’ve all asked repeatedly for copies of the audited accounts to see what the money is being spent on and we keep getting fobbed off.”
He said that, like Mr Perrins, many on the street are thinking of leaving.
Linda Eccleston, who has lived on the road for 20 years, would like to know the reason for the fee increase. She has asked the site manager several times to meet her to discuss it, to no avail.
Sick of their circumstances, residents are now looking into buying the car park and running it themselves as a collective.
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On top of the enormous car park maintenance charges, they are also regularly billed for other things. Scott Traynor, 48, pays £370 a year to park in his own drive because he has to use an access road to get to it.
They have also been asked to cover the costs for a nearby block of flats, including cleaning, maintaining the gates, fire safety equipment and insurance.
A spokesperson for FirstPort said the company managed the houses and flats as a single development.
But homeowners are only charged for “general maintenance and insurance” of the estate including its car park, the spokesperson said – and not for costs linked to the flats.
They added that homeowners had been charged more in the last few years because of rises in property insurance.