WILTSHIRE Council’s car parking strategy is facing a new crisis as the council admit that a £1.1million shortfall is predicted.
Free car parking in the county’s car parks was abolished in April this year, in a move that has angered local councillors, traders, and residents alike. The new car parking charges were planned to generate an extra £1.5million revenue for Wiltshire Council, some of which was planned to be used to subsidise buses following cuts from government funding.
Instead, in July the council revealed that estimated earnings from car parking charges would be £500,000 less than expected. Now, just a few months later, the council has admitted that revised figures show an estimated shortfall of £1.1million.
£900,000 of the figure is the anticipated shortfall from on-street and off-street car parking, while an additional £200,000 shortfall is anticipated from penalty charge notices. The council argue that the shortfall will be “significantly offset” by some £400,000, mainly from increased usage in park and ride elsewhere in the county.
David Jenkins, Wiltshire councillor and president of the Westbury Chamber of Commerce said, “I think it’s an acute embarrassment. The money had been recognised as a shortfall, and then to add on another £600,000 is over double – it’s a total miscalculation. They set the car parking strategy out in April in order to generate money for the buses and what has happened is the reverse. People have just turned around and said we’re not going to use the car parks.”
Report angers local people
Adding insult to injury is a report, presented to Wiltshire Council’s cabinet on the 18th October, which downplays the affect of car parking on the county’s towns, suggesting “What a town or city has to offer is the primary factor affecting economic health, and not car parking charges.”
David Jenkins said, “I don’t think very much of this report whatsoever. The car parking is an issue in this town, that’s an absolutely fundamental fact, but the unitary council still come up with ‘they don’t think it’s this’ and ‘they don’t think it’s that’. That doesn’t deter from the fact that businesses are suffering and they do need help. These car parking charges are having a very negative affect. The economy in the town is very fragile and something like this is affecting it and it can make the difference.”
Bill Braid, a member of the town council’s car parking group added, “If people can park and use the shops, the shops will get busier. But if they have to pay, they’ll go somewhere with more shops. The town is half dead on a Saturday.”
Traders can also testify to the effects of the car parking charges. Heather Singer, of Ribbons said, “Because of the car parking charges Westbury is now a ‘pop-in’ and ‘pop-out’ town. People come in and they’re continuously looking at their watches, nobody relaxes. People used to come in here, try something on, have a cup of coffee, come back in and buy an outfit, and then go and buy some shoes to go with it, and we’d have kept them in Westbury looking at different shops. They don’t bother to come in and do that with the charges.
“My manageress told me there was a Saturday a few months ago when the air ambulance was called out and landed in the top car park. If you can get a helicopter landing in the car park that’s telling you something.”
Chris Longworth of Cards Plus added that the ‘pop-in, pop-out’ attitude means that it is not just trade that is suffering, but the whole spirit of the town. “People have no time to actually stop and say, ‘how are you’. That’s something you would get here, but don’t get in a big town. What people are missing is that this is a community area. And if you haven’t got the trade the shops will close and then where will all that go?”
Westbury Mayor David Windess said, “I think that the car parking charges are a joke. Wiltshire Council are not listening to the local councils, the traders, or the public. I understand that a consultation was carried out which is going in front of Wiltshire Council shortly, but yet again they have not listened to anything that the afore mentioned people have said. So they will get the result that they want, while not caring for the people that it affects.”
Town Council struggles to create strategy
The town council has been attempting to plan its own strategy to address the car parking crisis in Westbury, but say that without the details that they have requested from Wiltshire Council, they are struggling.
The town council initially wrote to Wiltshire Council in February this year, requesting relevant information on usage, costs, income and maintenance for the town’s car parks. Since then, the town council has repeatedly requested the information and although correspondence has been acknowledged, the requested information has not been forthcoming.
Some town councillors have suggested that the town council should take over the running of the car parks and re-introduce two hours’ free parking. However, others say that Wiltshire Council would demand an extortionate sum in order to do this.
With car parking due to be discussed at the meeting of full council on the 8th November, cllr David Jenkins, a member of the car parks working group, is angry that, should the information even materialise, the group will not have the information in time to discuss it amongst themselves before the 1st November deadline for questions.
Wiltshire Council refused to form a group to investigate their car parking strategy in more depth. Last month leader of the opposition, cllr Jon Hubbard, put forward a proposal to Wiltshire Council to form a task group, whose purpose would be to provide scrutiny of the authority’s car parking strategy. Following the refusal, he said, “I believe that the car parking issue needs to be looked at in some depth by a task group, where any interested councillor could have sat on the task group. However, this motion was refused. Perhaps Wiltshire Council do not want anyone digging deep into the shambolic disaster that is car parking.”
Pre-Christmas free hour
After hearing evidence from the report regarding the impact of parking charge changes, council leaders have agreed to proposals which will give drivers their second hour of car parking free in the six days leading up to Christmas. A voucher, which will be printed in the November issue of the Your Wiltshire magazine, will need to be cut out and placed next to the ticket which has bought one hour’s parking.
Other changes include extending service permits to include registered charities that need to load and unload vehicles, and peripatetic workers who deal with vulnerable people. Some changes will also be made for Blue Badge holders.
