Planning fee query.

heres one for you.

A company has a car parking problem, not enough spaces since company has grown business-wise over the last 10 years say.
The company purchase 2 adjoining dwellings with the view of demolition to convert to car park, to take the current car park loading off the street.

The local authority will only consider this as commercial development and so want to charge a planning fee per sq m. They also will (according to them) charge a development contribution fee per sq m as commercial as well, even though no new floor area of commercial activity is being proposed.
This is making the development unviable for the company who are trying to solve an existing problem.

We had suggested to the council that car parking spaces are never charged for separately on a new build, and are allotted in accordance with development plan requirements. This has fallen on deaf ears as they maintain that because we are not proposing a new build the car park is a separate commercial development. We suggested showing a 1sq m extension to the existing building with these new car spaces as associated spaces. That didnt wash either.

Anyone any angles on this? precedent or otherwise?