As portfolio holder for Regulatory services at Mendip, one of my more challenging responsibilities is to oversee the car parking regime across the district.
Car park charges are like any other taxes and things like the bubonic plague and botulism, in other words, not universally popular. However as a council we have a duty to provide sufficient and well managed car parks that are properly maintained and controlled to ensure that the most valuable shopper’s and visitors spaces see a good turnover of clients, and that the long term parking for residents and workers are available and affordable.
Car park charges across Mendip with the exception of Clarks village in Street, have not been increased generally for the last 3 and a half years, the Clarks village car parks were reviewed earlier this year, we have a contractual obligation to review charges when requested by our partners, these new changes do not impact on those changes that have already been introduced.
The RPI Index for inflation since the last across the board price increase in July 2008 was minus1.4% in 2009, 4.6% in 2010 and 5.6% in 2011, If we were to have increased parking charges in line with inflation since the last review, we would be looking at an increase of 8.8% now, instead of the 7.5% agreed last night, far from being an inflation busting increase as screamed by the headlines in the Journal last week, still why let the facts get in the way of a good headline eh! In fact why don’t we compare our car park charges with the Journal’s price rises? The journal has been increased in price three times in recent years by 5p every time, giving them an average increase of 9.5% each time, and they have the cheek to call us inflation busters!
The 7.5% is NOT rounded up to the nearest 10p, again as quoted in the press, it is rounded to the nearest 10p which means in effect that many of our cheaper short term stop and shop charges will not alter at all, all of our 50p and 60p rates remain unchanged, I hope the press will find some space to rectify their errors under a nice big headline in this week’s edition.
In addition to inflation, we have seen a 2.5% increase in the VAT rate introduced on January 1st, that we as a council have to pay on all our car park charges. This will cost the council £50k in the next financial year. We have also seen this year a hike in the Non Domestic Rates that are levied on our car parks. All businesses have seen similar increases, this is not something that we as a District Council have any control over and have to pay them exactly the same as everyone else. This increase in NDR will cost the council £67k in the next financial year. If we do not increase charges to meet these increases, we will have to cut spending elsewhere to balance the books. I know balancing the books is a concept that is pretty alien to the Liberal Democrats, but we as a Conservative group always start with that as a pre-requisite.
There is no point in denying that car parking revenue is a significant portion of the councils overall funding, currently car parks contribute some £2.48 million to the overall budget, which equates to around £1.3 Million nett of VAT when the costs have been taken out. These revised charges will increase the overall revenue by around £100k gross, however when you take the increase in VAT and NDR into consideration you will see that this increase does not even cover those items, leave alone the inflationary pressure. This also has to be considered against a backdrop of a 28% cut in government grant over 4 years, a 11% cut in the next financial year and a freeze in the council tax, there are very few areas where we will see any increase in revenue at all, and ever increasing calls on our budget.
I fully understand that there will be many who will have issues with the changes that we have made, however these proposals were agreed by a cross party working group of councillors. After the elections in May, we contacted the leader of the opposition to ask for nominees to the Car Park Working Party, for weeks we had no reply whatsoever, when they did respond the nominated people then cried off for various reasons causing meetings to be postponed, and when finally the group did meet, Councillor Cottle (Lib Dem) sent apologies and arranged for Councillor Brunsdon to attend as a substitute, but we heard nothing and no substitute from either Councillor Unwin (Lib Dem) representing Wells or Councillor Hooton (Lib Dem) from Frome, all of the Conservative nominees attended.
I received numerous communications from Frome complaining that their interests were not represented on the working group, I have told them who that person should have been, and to contact him directly with any complaints that they may have.
We received representations from Frome Chamber of Commerce, Vision for Frome and Councillor Godman also from Frome requesting among other things that the implementation date of the increase to be postponed until after Christmas. We listened to those proposals and as a result we decided to delay the implementation of the changes until February 1st 2012, after the New Year sales period has ended.
The free Christmas parking that we have given in other years is extended to 2pm every day for the two weeks up until the festive season, and we have extended the free parking for the whole of New Years day so that no-one will have to worry about driving with even the possibility of having excess alcohol still in their system if they leave their car in the town centre overnight.
On other matters, the group decided that our permit prices would rise at the same rate as the other charges, rounded to the nearest pound, but our very generous discount scheme that is heavily subsidised by the council would remain in place, meaning that our most regular users would still be able to park at very preferential rates.
We discussed whether or not to introduce charges for disabled parking. Most of our local districts do charge for disabled parking, and the group felt that we should carry out consultations as to whether we should follow suit. We will consult widely with disabled groups and carry out an impact assessment before any changes are finalised. In any event our ticket machines are not suitable to be used by disabled users in their current state, and the areas around the ticket machines will also require adaption. We will have to assess the cost of carrying out these changes alongside the consultation and impact assessment.
It has been acknowledged that many of our regular users, especially many town centre workers, use car parks as a matter of habit, rather than seeking to find the best available rates, as a result, we will be introducing signage in some of our short stay car parks, that are primarily designed for use by shoppers and visitors, that there is long stay parking available elsewhere in the town at a vastly reduced price. This we hope will have the impact of saving our town centre workers money, whilst at the same time making more valuable stop and shop spaces available.
There will be a minor change to the parking regime in Shepton Mallet’s Great Ostry car park. As a result of representations that we received from local traders and the comprehensive Urban Design study carried out by the Townscape Heritage Initiative, it has been decided to amend the existing small “free parking“ area where currently shoppers can get free parking for an hour, but can then buy a ticket to extend the stay beyond that period, to a regime where it will be free for one hour, but with a maximum one hour stay. This will have the effect of providing a greater turnover of spaces for the most valuable stop and shop users, without these spaces being blocked up by paying clients over an extended period.
Vision for Frome have asked us to take a “leap of faith” and are saying that if we reduce parking charges we will encourage more visitors and therefore increase income overall. It is an interesting concept, but I am not a man of faith and take decisions on logic, however, if Vision for Frome with the Chamber of Commerce and perhaps the Town Council want to produce a plan that underwrites any losses we suffer, then I'm sure we will give it careful consideration.
In addition to the changes in the car park regime, the cabinet also voted to join the county wide Civil Parking Enforcement scheme last night. This means that as from the middle of next year, civil traffic wardens will be empowered to enforce on-street as well as off street parking. The police have told us that they will be withdrawing from on-street parking enforcement, they have other priorities, it will be for the county scheme to take over this task.
The actual on-street free parking areas will remain as before, however they will be routinely patrolled to ensure that they are not abused by long term parking blocking up valuable stop and shop spaces.
Perhaps the most interesting point of all occurred on BBC Radio Somerset this morning. I was interviewed at about 7:45am regarding the charges, the facts are as I've recounted them here, either car park charges go up, or cuts will have to be made elsewhere to cover the £117k increase in tax we have to pay. We have a stark choice, either the users of car parks pay, or we all pay through higher taxes or poorer services.
Now the Lib Dems are not well known for sound financial management, so when the afore mentioned Danny Unwin from Wells, who failed to attend the working party remember, was interviewed later on, he was speaking on "behalf of Mendip Liberal Democrats". When asked how he would cover the £117k increase in tax, he stumbled, blustered and didn't answer the question, when finally pushed for an answer he said that we should introduce charges for on-street parking to cover the shortfall!!
If charging for on-street parking that is currently free is not an increase in parking charges I'll eat my hat!!!
