WILTSHIRE Council has been heavily criticised after making nearly three quarters of a million pounds in overpayments in the last three years from car parking machines that do not give change.
This has led local councillors to call for car parking charges in Westbury to be scrapped to support local businesses.
A recent Freedom Of Information request revealed that Wiltshire Council has made £730,000 in three years from overpayments from car parking machines that don’t give change – more money than any other council in the country that responded to the request.
The latest figures reveal that the council made £250,000 in 2012/13 alone making them the biggest beneficiaries from overpayments than any of the 79 councils to respond. Tunbridge Wells come second as they raked in £94,000 for the same period.
Westbury’s Wiltshire Councillors Gordon King and David Jenkins have reacted with shock and disgust at the news. They told White Horse News, “It is quite simply appalling behaviour on the part of the council. Motorists pay enough already in road tax and fuel charges; they do not expect to be ripped off when parking as well.
“Nor are we impressed with the council’s lame ideas of replacing machines with others that allows payment by phone. Not everyone wants or needs a smart phone, especially where the very real possibility exists that some people may become too easily confused and end up paying more.
“We would like these charges to be scrapped altogether to help our fragile town economy; if they cannot, then we would like to see the introduction of new systems that allocates parking time by the amount of money paid and which makes use of already proven technology systems.
Westbury West councillor, David Windess said, “I have always been a firm believer that the charges for parking in Westbury should be scrapped. We are supposed to be supporting local business, not driving people out of town with extortionate parking charges. To think that Wiltshire Council has made this kind of profit at the expense of local people and at the cost to local business due to lack of foot fall just goes to show that the so-called working for the people of Wiltshire is just a banner to them, that they have not got fully behind. I feel it’s disgusting that £250k was made in the last year by short-changing the people of Wiltshire.”
Westbury Mayor cllr Christine Mitchell said, “Asking Wiltshire Council to change the ticket machines so that they give change is almost certainly a ‘non-starter’ as it will cost a considerable amount of money to implement. My personal opinion is that the car parking charges should be scrapped altogether as this will be beneficial to the people and the businesses in our town.”
Town councillor Ian Cunningham said, “The town council has always argued that the current charging band assigned to Westbury was unfair and did not reflect the town’s economy and tried hard to persuade Wiltshire Council of this at the last review.”
The latest figures follows the news last September in the White Horse News that revealed Wiltshire Council made £7.6million from car parking charges in 2012/13 placing them as the 11th most profitable local authority from parking excluding the London Boroughs. This places rural Wiltshire above large city councils including Birmingham, Liverpool, Bristol and Sheffield.
A Wiltshire Council spokesperson said, “In Wiltshire we give people the option of a variety of methods to pay for tickets to use our car parks. If people don’t have the correct change they can pay by debit or credit card via their mobile phone at every car park we run, and to save money monthly or annual season tickets are available.
“All of the funds received from over vend are used to fund transport initiatives including support to rural bus services for those without access to cars, which require subsidy to make these services viable.”
