Visitors to Caerphilly County Borough country parks will be charged for car parking under council plans to raise an estimated £80,000 a year.
The proposal, currently under public notice, could result in charges at Parc Cwm Darran, Parc Penallta, Pen y Fan Pond, Sirhowy Valley Country Park and Park Coetir Bargoed.
A cost of £1 for two hours, £3 daily and and £50 for the year will be charged seven days a week should the plans go ahead.
Disabled badge holders will pay £1 for three hours.
Pay and display machines will be placed in car parks, with park rangers enforcing the rules.
Objections to the proposals can be made in writing to Caerphilly County Borough Council’s Legal Services department until April 25.
A spokesman for Caerphilly County Borough Council, said the money generated would go towards budget savings.
He said: “The decision to implement these changes has not been taken lightly.
“Caerphilly, along with every local authority across Wales, is facing unprecedented financial pressure as a result of UK Government funding cuts. In this financial year alone we are faced with making savings in excess of £14 million and a similar further saving is required over the next two years.
“The proposal, which affects parking at all five county parks, is subject to a public notice. Any objections raised during the objection period will be carefully considered before a decision is issued.”
The amount saved, £80,000, is far less than the salary of any of the senior council officers currently suspended on full pay after a police investigation. From my perspective I think that the council should be seeking to recover this money rather than charging for car parking at these parks.
Additionally I wonder whether this saving is based on the current recorded visits to these parks. When a charge is introduced these visits will reduce in number. Coupled with the costs of pay and display I wonder whether the amount raised will be anything like £80,000 per annum.
And what about the huge amounts of European funding that is given to these parks – but yet again they role out the same old excuse “UK government funding cuts”, change the record, it will cost more than £80’000 to install ticket machines, maintain them and administer them – maybe they can apply for even more European funding for that.
All this work for £80000 is daft! Just cut a few councillors and you have soon raised the same amount.
how on earth are they going to stop these machines being vandalised or broken into
Again, we see Caerphilly council failing to make cuts to an obese public authority but rather increase and impose fiscal measures of the ratepayers to pay more into their purses so that officers who act unlawfully can raid it.
One sure fire way to tackle waste, charge the head of council departments with cutting waste to the tune of their salary each year or lose said salary. Ask your employees directly where waste can be eliminated as they see it all the time and it annoys them.
Visitors in cars will end up blocking residential areas and possibly illegally park on Sundays, so I doubt the fees will meet their objectives. But if you are going to insist on taking this path, at least offer a text payment system to make it easier for people to pay and reduce the amount of cash held in the machines. And talking of money, if they do have to employ additional staff, is it really worth it? How about spending an additional £30K on a cost benefit analysis?!!