Two petitions have been launched in protest to a town centre parking charge hike which campaigners claim could kill off businesses.

Brian Ayling, independent councillor for St Luke's ward, has lodged a petition, which currently has more than 2,000-signatures, to Southend Council.

Echo:

Concerns - Brian Ayling

The petitions were launched after the summer parking charges came into force on April 1 - taking the price of a two-hour stay in the town from £2.20 to £2.90 and more than £6 for four hours.

Mr Ayling has insisted residents are hugely frustrated.

Mr Ayling said: “A lot of people are up in arms because a lot of businesses are suffering. We want to offer parking permits for something like £50 a year. Residents with a permit would be allowed to park the first two hours free.

“This would be beneficial to the council because permits don’t have VAT whereas parking metres do.

“Everyone is talking about this and there are a lot of stories about businesses losing a lot of trade.”

James Courtenay, deputy leader of Southend council said the idea of a permit was a good one but unworkable.

He said: “The big elephant in the room is where is the funding coming from elsewhere? We reinvest the income from parking into the High Street with things like the spring clean and the community safety team.

“There are 3,000 parking spaces in the centre of Southend where you can pay for one hour or less.

“If we had two hours free parking that would cost £1.6million a year.”

Mr Courtenay added: “It is somewhat ironic that the charges were brought in February 2017 in the last budget of the joint administration, of which Mr Ayling was a member of, to put charges up in central Southend from £2.20 to £2.90.

“We couldn’t afford to undo that but we did introduce the winter tariff to support business.

"A £50 permit is a nice idea but it wouldn’t raise nearly enough revenue for services we have to provide.”

A second petition has been launched by resident Josie Hewitt, garnering hundreds of signatures.