such as Hanbury Road in Bargoed, pictured
A Labour councillor has called for charges to be introduced at more council-run car parks to raise extra cash for council services.
Blackwood councillor Nigel Dix said the extra money raised could total millions of pounds.
Caerphilly County Borough Council is planning to implement a 3.9% council tax increase next year, as well as cuts totalling £12.4 million.
Cllr Dix said: “We are a council facing huge cuts and we’ve already made huge cuts.
“If we don’t use our assets properly, we are not going to get through this period.
“The cost of maintaining these car parks comes down to the local taxpayers – whether they’ve got a car or not.
“If a worker goes to Blackwood or Caerphilly to work in a shop they have to pay to park there all day, but if someone goes to Cardiff on a train and leaves their car at the park and ride they don’t.”
Cllr Dix, who sits on the council’s Regeneration and Environment Scrutiny Committee, said all he was asking for was equality in that people who use car parks should contribute towards maintenance.
The committee met on Thursday, November 27 to consider some of the cuts and charge increases proposed by the Labour-run local authority.
One of the proposals is to increase charges in council car parks by 10p per hour, bringing in an extra £50,000 a year.
Cllr Dix said he proposed that council officers should look at ways of introducing car parking charges at council-run sites – including park and ride.
He said: “I asked officers for a list of all our car parks and was surprised to learn that out of 82 car parks the authority only charges in 20 with the remaining 62 car parks free. This equates to 2,272 free car parking spaces.
“If the authority were to introduce a charge in these car parks, based on an income of £5 a day for each space we could generate over £3m a year in much-needed revenue.”
He added: “At the meeting, members of the committee did not support the proposed increase in parking fee, but did however vote that officers look at all our car parks and where viable a fee is charged.”
However Labour colleague Hefin David, councillor for St Cattwg and the candidate for the Caerphilly seat in May’s Assembly election, said he would be strongly against any introduction of charges at park and ride sites.
He said: “I believe this would be a tax on commuters and force cars back on to roads.”
Cllr Colin Mann, leader of the Plaid Cymru group on the council said: “Obviously Labour have to look at all options for savings. However they heavily criticised the former Plaid administration when we no more than considered park and ride charges, which we decided not to impose.
“If parking charges result in more people driving to Cardiff and not using the trains this will certainly be a cause of even more congestion and pollution which will be very bad for the environment.
“They will need to balance income against sustainability when looking at the park and ride issue.”
A labour councillor wants to increase charges to raise extra cash – now there’s a surprise, it’s the only idea Labour can ever come up with, bash the public for more money! How about get rid of some useless overpaid council employees, or cut back on lavish council spending.
Hear, hear! To quote a God: “the problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.”
I wish people would realise Labour’s ideas of spend, spend, spend, and tax, tax, tax do not work. Socialism does not work. The entire Labour Party is fundamentally flawed. Labour does not work.
Arrrgghh how do these people get elected? A claim of raising £3m, but with no consideration of the change of behaviour that would result. It wouldn’t be £3m, far from it, and would result in detrimental behaviour change. Perhaps Labour should look at spending less. How much has been raised from imposing parking charges at Penallta Parc and what has been the change in behaviour? My guess is very little, and probably less people making use of the park.
Quite right, spend less! The first idea I would give the council to cut their mobile customer service centre which has cost the best part of £130,000 to buy plus running costs.
As for how they get elected, that’s easy. The voters have a memory of a goldfish when it comes to elections. It’s a well proven fact across the country; it’s the reason why cuts are announced in the first budget of Parliament.
I don’t follow the logic here. Why would anyone pay £5 for parking and then pay train fare to Cardiff? They would be more likely to park on the street, giving residents more parking problems, or stay in the car until their destination which increases congestion and pollution.
In my town, Caerffili, I woulkd like to see all council car parks be made free of charge, even if this was for 2 hours. This would benefit local business, people may actually use the shops if they could park. It would also ease congestion caused by drivers circling the town around the one way system several times as they look for a free parking space on the streets.
“Cllr Dix, who sits on the council’s Regeneration and Environment
Scrutiny Committee, said all he was asking for was equality in that
people who use car parks should contribute towards maintenance”
It should be said that Nigel Dix`s motion is seriously flawed, Users of car parks, and any other Council provided facilities already pay for that facility by way of income Tax and council Tax, and, if the main consideration for the proposal is to enable the Council to take even more money from citizens who use them then why not charge for each child using Schools? I already pay for that provision through the taxation system, yet I dont use it, thesame goes for citizens who dont use car parks.
The fact is that parking facilities are a Fiscal provision enabling Councils and private enterprises, to make money, that being the case, when a Council creates such a facility it does so with `private enterprise` in mind, Caerphilly Council Car Parks are a ` cash cow` no more no less, and I think it is a bit rich suggesting that the cow should be milked more than once, in fact I hold the view that to pay once is reasonable, i.e. to raise reasonable funds for the upkeep and maintainance of the parks by the users, but Nigel, in his own submission appears to suggest that they be used to raise surplus money as a purely fiscal provision for the Council to generate even MORE funds.
I agree with Hefin Davids Comments who said ” said he would be strongly against any introduction of charges at park and ride sites.He said: “I believe this would be a tax on commuters and force cars back on to roads.”.
The disabled get no support from Caerphilly cbc full stop. Plaid cymru or labour.
Time to vote UKIP then!