AN ICONIC UK seaside beauty spot has hiked parking fees up to £25 for just over an HOUR.
Disgruntled visitors branded the prices “daylight robbery” and doubted whether they would return to the popular landmark.
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Durdle Door, situated on the Jurassic Coast in Dorset, draws thousands of tourists each year.
But some were fuming after discovering new car parking charges.
Shane Waller, a camper van driver, told The Telegraph he had to fork out £25 after staying for an hour and 20 minutes.
“I love Lulworth Cove but the parking charges now are daylight robbery, it will suffer as a result of this”, said the 51-year-old.
The London-based lorry driver also thought a lack of signage when you arrive was “a bit naughty”.
Despite loving the area, Shane wasn’t sure if he would come back again.
The private estate that owns Durdle Door, Lulworth Estate, states a run down of prices online.
Visitors must pay £3.10 for an hour, £12.40 for between one and four hours – or £20 for the full day.
But “large vehicle” drivers are required to cough up £10 for the first hour, £25 for between 1 and 4 hours, or £30 for the full day.
It comes after Lulworth Estate increased its car parking charges by a whopping 66 per cent last month.
The move has already proved unpopular with many motorists among the 750,000 visitors who flock to the area each year.
A Lulworth Estate spokesman said the parking charges were “fundamental in supporting our schools’ education programme, on-going care and projects to preserve the surrounding landscapes”.
“This is a new car parking payment system that we have invested in over the winter, with the aim of it being more user friendly for our customers,” he said.
“However, as with new systems some teething issues can be expected, albeit swiftly rectified.
“We took the decision to increase our prices last summer after thorough research on other coastal and World Heritage destination access prices.
“We have specific parking areas for vehicles over 5.5m in length as they take up more space for parking and manoeuvring and can make it harder for other vehicles to park, especially at peak times.”
While Durdle Door is a three-hour drive from London, it’s less than an hour’s drive from neighbouring coastal towns like Bournemouth and Weymouth.
The famous UK landmark can also be reached on a direct train from London Waterloo to Wool train station.
Two other beaches, Lulworth Cove and Man O’War Beach, are also a stone’s throw away from Durdle Door.
This comes as we revealed UK seaside towns with the most expensive parking charges – with a major holiday destination in the top spot.
Drivers could be missing out on savings of more than £20 a day by passing over some less-appreciated beaches in favour of staycation hotspots.
A study conducted by Motorscan ranked areas based on the average cost of a parking space within a 30-minute walk of the town centre across eight hours, i.e. parking for a whole day.
Based on this metric, the ever-popular Brighton was far and away the most expensive, with motorists shelling out a whopping £24.21 per day on average.
That was streets ahead of the next dearest, Newquay in Cornwall, where drivers pay £12.32.
Another Cornish favourite rounded out the top three, with visitors to Falmouth dropping £12.12.
Indeed, Cornwall was the most represented county in the top 10 as those two were joined by St Ives in sixth, while nearby Ilfracombe in Devon came seventh.
The popular South West spots were separated by Southend, Essex, in fourth and Bournemouth, Dorset, in fifth.
And Whitby, Yorkshire, was the only destination north of London to make the list, coming in tenth at £8.30.
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