Car parking review could be “the death of town centres”

By Elgan Hearn, Local Democracy Reporter

Car parks should not be used as cash cows for Powys County Council as senior councillors were warned that proposals to make more money from them would sound the death knell for town centre businesses.

At a meeting of the council’s Economy, Residents and Communities scrutiny committee yesterday, councillors received a report outlining a number of recommendations made by council officers following the controversial car parking and charging review.

Following the review, the report had two sets of proposals. The first comes from the cross-party working group which included county councillors and representatives from town councils and businesses. The second is by staff from the Highways, Transport and Recycling department which is seen as the preferred option.

The working group options included reintroducing one-hour car parking tickets and is estimated to make the council £5,900 – but this would leave the council £121,100 short of its income generation target for the year.

The recommendations of the Highways Transport and Recycling Department included reintroducing one-hour car parking tickets, but only at long stay car parks at Builth Wells, Crickhowell, Llanidloes, Machynlleth, Presteigne and Ystradgynlais, as these towns don’t have short stay car parks.

The proposals from council officers are estimated to make an extra £402,200 for the council which would cover other departmental overspends – this has already been noted by director of corporate services and finance chief, Jane Thomas, as the preferred option.

Place chief officer, Matt Perry, said: “Our target for car park income is over £2 million and we are predicting that we are going to fall £121,000 short of that target – hence why we are pushing to try and balance this as best as possible.

“We can’t bring stuff forward that costs the authority more.”

Plaid Cymru’s Cllr Gary Mitchell said: “There are some towns in our county that have completely free parking, that’s not fair to me.

“I’m not comfortable at all with this, it doesn’t consider enough the impact on town centres which is why it was first brought about as a motion – I don’t know where we go with it.”

Powys Independents’ Cllr Graham Breeze, who originally brought forward the motion for the review last year, has been scathing in his criticism of the recommendation since the report was published last week.

Cllr Breeze said: “I hope that the portfolio holder, cabinet colleagues and officers fully take on board what they are being told today or they will long be held responsible for the death of town centres in Powys.”

Liberal Democrat Cllr Raiff Devlin said: “The proposal goes too far. Our car parks can’t be treated as purely an income stream for the council because of the economic impact they have in our towns.”

Highways Transport and Recycling cabinet member, Liberal Democrat Cllr Jackie Charlton said: “This is a starting point, I and officers accept your criticism. We want to ask town and community councils what it is they want to see.”

She said that some communities wanted short stay car parking to be reintroduced, and others wanted on street parking reduced from one hour to 30 minutes.

Cllr Charlton said “There’s lots of issues here that we need to look at.

“You are not being ignored it’s that we are unable to do everything we would want to do.”

Councillors then moved to a vote.

Cllr Mitchell proposed a counter recommendation to agree with the working groups recommendation of re-instating the one-hour parking across all car parks.

On all other recommendations the committee wanted to see more information before any decision can be made.

The report with comments from committee is set to be discussed by Cabinet at a future meeting.

A reminder of the full officer recommendations:

• Reinstate the one hour parking charge to long-stay car parks in the towns where there are no short-stay car parks  – Builth Wells, Crickhowell, Llanidloes, Machynlleth, Presteigne and Ystradgynlais.
• Increase the tariffs for two to four hours and all-day parking charges to mitigate the financial pressures of reinstating the 1hr parking option in the specified long-stay car parks.
• Review options for introducing charging in off-street council car parks where currently no charging structure exists.
• Review options for amending car park permits to be valid for specific, single car parks, with an option to upgrade for use in multiple car parks in the county.
• Free parking for events will cease unless the budget can accommodate all associated costs.