Background
The County Council agreed to meet the £50,000 additional Income target for car parking charges within its 2023-24 budget strategy through increasing Car Parking charges by up to 40% in accordance with the table below,
Applying these charges to the 2021-22 usage figures below would result in increased income to the authority of approximately £317,000, six times that of the identified target.
Alongside increasing the charges for the three lower time bands the proposal was made and accepted to remove the “up to one hour” ticket option in the many long stay car parks across the county, resulting in the increase in the charge for some one just popping to the shops for a few things or a quick coffee with friends from £1.00 to £2.50 an increase of 150%.
The table overleaf shows that 40% of the Car Parking tickets purchased between August 2021 and July 2022, a year when the Country was still emerging from the COVID 19 pandemic, was for stays of up to an hour, with around 80% of these tickets being purchased in long stay carparks would result in 272,000 tickets being subject to the 150% increase in cost and delivering a further increased income of £299,000 which when added to the £317,000 identified above gives an total additional income of £616,00 against the £50,000 target, before adjusting for any decrease in the number of tickets purchased. It is likely that the full year, non pandemic, ticket sales would be somewhat higher.
With such a significant increase in charges, the authority has expected and accounted for a reduction in the number of tickets purchased, especially of those in the lower two time bands. Members who represent the larger towns in the authority and as reported in the local press are fully aware of a increase in the number of vehicles being parked on the streets and within local estates and many shopkeepers in the towns have reported that they have seen a reduction in trade that coincided with the introduction of the new car parking charges.
Motion
To support the economic life of our town centres, reduce the level of inappropriate car parking in our towns and estates and to increase the level of car parking income received by the county it is proposed that:-
1. There is no immediate change to the car parking charges in the designated short or long stay car parks.
2. A full review is undertaken of the Car Park charges and category of all County Council run car parks in the authority with the results and recommendations of that review being brought back to the next meeting of full Council on the 5th October.
3. Officers as part of the review detailed in 2 above provide member a fully costed estimate of the car park income for the 2023-24 compared to the base budget together with details of any budget virement required to realign the relevant budgets.
Proposer: Cllr Gareth E Jones
Seconder: Cllr Graham Breeze
Finance Comment In order to undertake a review by October the service advise that they would need to engage Consultants with a specialism in parking management at an estimated cost of £40k. This could be funded from any over achievement of the income within the service. |
Minutes:
The proposer advised that if the Cabinet Member for a Greener Powys confirmed she would have a cross party review, he would be prepared to withdraw his motion. The Cabinet Member for a Greener Powys gave that commitment and therefore the motion was withdrawn.