PRICES are set to rise at two of Haslemere's pay-and-display car parks – with rail commuters set to pick up the majority of the bill.

Tanners Lane car park and Weydown Road have been targeted by the council for an increase in the cost of an all-day ticket resulting in a hike of 20 per cent.

Currently it costs £2-50 for an all-day ticket but on Tuesday, Waverley Borough Council's executive backed proposals to increase this to £3 from February 1.

The cost of an annual season ticket is also set for a hike from £560 to £670 from April 1 – targeting workers and commuters who use the car parks which are the closest to Haslemere's railway station.

Councillors heard that the Weydown Road car park "is consistently full to maximum capacity early each day" and that its charges, as well as the Tanners Lane car park, are "lower than the charges levied in the main long-stay car parks elsewhere in the borough".

The report said: "The proposed revision to the parking fees and charges will improve the operation of specific car parks where problems have arisen as a result of existing charges no longer being appropriate."

The move will net the council an additional £15,000 a year and form part of a package of proposals to raise an extra £90,000 a year for the council, bringing car park income to £3 million a year.

Instead of considering a blanket increase in the charges across Waverley, the borough council is only targeting the two Haslemere car parks, Crown Court in Godalming and South Street in Farnham.

A range of increases will result in an increased income of around three per cent, averting the need for further hikes in the rest of the borough's pay-and-display car parks.

However, the increases are expected to hit local workers and commuters hardest as the under-capacity of the station's own car park means that many use the council-owned ones instead.

Some try to squeeze into the free Waverley- owned Wey Hill car park, which is not properly made up for parking, but that is set to become a pay-and-display car park once the new Haslemere library is built.

It is feared that the changes will see more commuters use what will now be the cheapest long-stay car park in Chestnut Avenue, already popular with town centre workers at a cost of £2-50 a day, or residential streets.

However environment director Peter Maudsley told this week's executive meeting that most borough residents would be unaffected by the changes.

"For most of our car-park users, these proposals represent no increase," he said.

He also reiterated that the changes proposed were all chosen with a view to improving operational management.

Executive member Victor Scrivens said the increase in income represented three per cent, yet of the council's 4,000 parking spaces, only 500 were affected.

The recommendation will now go to the full council for approval when it meets on Tuesday.