In Liverpool, there is a surprising knock-on effect from the massive squeeze on public spending as the authority attempts to deal with a multi-million pound funding gap.
The city's Daily Post newspaper has discovered that the cuts could lead to an extension of paid-for parking outside of the city centre.
While none of the finer detail has yet been clarified, the council's regeneration and transport cabinet member councillor Malcolm Kennedy said city chiefs were facing a £160m backlog of road repairs which must be funded somehow.
The Post reports that another idea under consideration is the creation of more parking spaces on streets which currently have double yellow lines and where the only revenue generated is through fines.
Kennedy told the Post: "We get less from government and we can't raise it directly from our council tax payers and we have not got the reserves.
"This is not about milking money from people. But apart from the money that comes from the independent passenger transport authority the only money that goes on roads and street lighting comes from parking.
"It's something we are going to have to consider. It's in the budget that charges will go up but it has got to be worked out."
He said there's also a potential for having charges rather than having double yellow lines everywhere.
Last year when the "parking scrutiny panel" reported its findings it mooted the idea of introducing a charge of around £20 a year for residents' permits and extending the scheme.
But council leaders including leader Joe Anderson and Malcolm Kennedy rejected the idea at the time. It is not clear whether this proposal – or the idea of charging for parking spaces after 6pm – are now under discussion.
Shadow cabinet member for regeneration and transport Councillor Paula Keaveney said: "It's accepted that if you want to save front line services then some charges will have to rise. You would have to be rather stupid not to understand the relationship between these two things. But we need to know what the increase would be and what the effect would be."
Emma Boon, of the Taxpayers' Alliance, was not impressed. She said: "Councils should be looking at how they can cut spending and save money, not hiking charges and putting more pressure on hard-pressed taxpayers. Working more efficiently, slashing red tape and bureaucracy and cutting wasteful spending can all help.
"In the last decade council tax has almost doubled. It would be unfair if councils tried to plug the funding gap with stealth taxes like extra charges on parking."
