A MAJOR shake-up of parking charges across Southampton city centre comes into effect on Monday.

The plans, first revealed in the Daily Echo last year, will see prices tumble on some city streets after the plans were given final approval.

They will also include scrapping the controversial evening charge that forced motorists to pay £2 to park for even a few minutes, and replacing it with a new fee of 50p every half an hour after 6pm, up to 8pm.

At the moment charges differ across the city centre with motorists paying between £1.20 and £2.50 for an hour’s on-street parking.

The Daily Echo revealed in November that the city council raked in £9.2m in parking fees from June 2013 to July 2014, but Labour council leader Simon Letts said he would take a hit on that income to boost city centre businesses.

The five current parking zones in the city centre will become three, while the number of different parking charges will be cut from 21 to 12.

The changes will make it £1 cheaper for motorists to park for 90 minutes in the busiest, inner city area and 20p cheaper to park for an hour in the same area.

For example, motorists wanting to park for two hours in Park Walk, the city’s most popular street for parking, will now pay £2 instead of £2.50 for one hour.

And they can now pay £3 for 90 minutes when before they would have had to pay £4 for the full two hours.

As well as the new 50p per half hour after 6pm, there will now be a 15-minute “grace period” from 5.45pm to 6pm meaning motorists wanting to park after 6pm will not have to pay for the minutes leading up to the evening charges kicking in.

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Evening tickets will also be able to be bought from 4pm in the new Inner Zone, 2pm in the Green Outer Zone and any time in the Grey Outer Zone.

Cllr Letts said: “We worked with local businesses and together came forward with a proposal to simplify the system and reduce some charges.

“I hope that this will encourage many more people to come into our city centre and enjoy what Southampton has to offer.”