Issue - meetings

To scrutinise developments within the Parking Service.

To recommend to the Cabinet:

·       Increasing parking fees on an annual or biennial basis should be considered with consideration to the inflation position;

·       Enforcement in the short-stay car parks should not be modified due to the impact on the local economy.

·       Further increase of fees should be considered in car parks in specific tourist areas such as Pen y Gwryd.

·       Consideration should be given to increasing Arosfan site fees annually.

The report was submitted by the Cabinet Member for the Environment, the Head of Environment Department, the Assistant Head of Environment Department (Transport) and the Parking and Street Works Manager.

It was explained that the Report included revisions to parking fee arrangements to comply with the Council's savings schemes and address the overspend within the parking services. Members were reminded that two of the projects featured in the report (Increasing Pen y Gwryd parking fees and Increasing the price of an Annual Parking Permit and Local Parking Permit by £5 per annum) had already been approved by the Cabinet.

They drew attention to a scheme to Extend Parking Enforcement Hours at the Council's Short Stay Car Parks, highlighting that the current enforcement hours are between 10:00am and 4:30pm. It was planned to extend the enforcement hours to between 09:00am and 05:00pm. Members were reminded that this had been the Communities Scrutiny Committee's original recommendation in 2021.

It was noted that the fourth scheme in the report was an Adjustment to the Band 2 Long-Stay Fees Structure. The officers explained that this scheme was being introduced to address the inflation increase. They highlighted the challenge in addressing inflation increase, which was to ensure that suitable fees were introduced for anyone who wished to pay with cash without having to find lots of loose change. It was confirmed that the normal arrangement was to wait a few years before revising parking fees in line with inflation, so as to ensure that parking fees were practical for users. It was acknowledged that this led to quite a hike, but that the revisions to the pricing was implemented less frequently. It was confirmed that the revisions introduced in the report constituted an increase of around 30-40%, which ensured that they would not need to be revised further until 2028/29.

During the discussion, the following observations were noted:- 

Agreed with the plans to increase parking fees in Pen y Gwryd and encouraged the department to invest in similar locations as it was being used regularly. Further information was requested about Band 1 - 3 Parking Fees for long stays.

Disagreed with the schemes to adjust car parks' enforcement hours. The member considered that this would have too much of a negative impact on local residents and business, leading to fines. It was noted that increasing the price of an annual parking permit to £145 likely meant that individuals would no longer buy it.

Attention was drawn to the fact that the permitted time within parking fees was changing in some cases. They discussed the example that £2 for 1 hour of parking would adjust to £2.50 for four hours. They wondered whether this would deter people from paying to park because they would not be using the car park for a large proportion of that time. However, the Head of Department agreed that this increase in the time for long-stay car parks had been one of the recommendations of the Communities Scrutiny Committee's task and  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5