Councillors Guildhall Car Park
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Posts
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You haven’t got to worry about shorter meetings for the Councillors to get to their car parking — look at the attendance figures – looks like some have only been to about 6 meetings since being elected last May.
They all should (although only about half do) complete an annual report of their Council activities at Ward and County level.
Everyone should ask their local Councilor for a copy of their report…[quote quote=147312]
Going back to https://www.wrexham.com/news/which-councillor-claimed-1-35-mileage-to-attend-remembrance-day-service-99364.html etc it appears WCBC do allow travel expenses from home to guildhall for meetings.
I have often stated that Councillors should have access to Pool cars and that would sort both mileage claims and parking.[/quote]
Often? Where did you state that they should have access to pool cars? And was this only in respect of councillors or also ‘top management’?
Do ‘top management’ now have to pay for parking or is it only councillors and lesser beings that have to pay for it?
How would pool cars solve this? First, it seems to me a ruse to create an empty space in the car park – i.e. the councillor will park their own car in the space vacated by the pool car they are driving. Second, it would have no effect on mileage from home to Guildhall as the councillor would still need to travel to the Guildhall to collect the pool car. So, in addition to the council being expected to provide free parking, they would now have to provide pool cars, pay the fuel costs for them and the servicing and probably car washes or other sundries. Also, if the councillor needed to travel somewhere other than the Guildhall, they would first have to travel out of their way to the Guildhall in order to collect the pool car. I’m failing to see how pool cars would be a good idea.
Perhaps you don’t actually mean a pool car – perhaps you mean the perk of having a car permanently provided by the council to serving councillors as a benefit in kind, like a ‘company car’. I imagine you would expect Guildhall parking to be free for such vehicles, as it wouldn’t be fair to ‘make’ councillors drive council cars AND pay the parking charges for those cars. So this would be more expense for the council and less personal expense for the councillors.
I think it’s excellent that the councillors’ pay rise won’t cover more than a few months parking charges as I think it is important they get a better idea of what the costs and inconveniences are for many who work in Wrexham. I am impressed and more than a little surprised that councillors are foregoing car park charges for themselves. I wonder what the decision would have been had it been made by so-called ‘top management’.
I believe that Council workers doing a journey of 100 miles or more have to use a hire car as this is cheaper than them being paid 45p a mile or 50p if they have a passenger. The hire charge and fuel are cheaper than the mileage allowance. One example I know of was someone going to Colwyn Bay with a passenger – their hire car was a Ford Ka at £20 and fuel only £15- milage 86 x 50p = £43 saving £8. Might not seem much but it adds up and longer journeys clearly significant savings across all the staff doing out of county or even within county.
Some people take exception to my logic, often implying that this is somehow flawed but after working for a number of Welsh Councils and still being in touch with many officers and Councillors, I do assure you that my opinions are valid and are well sourced.
Council Watcher, if you ‘believe’ the car hire saving is true, where do they park the cars and wouldn’t the people (Top Managers?) still need to park their own cars at the Council Car Park? The £8 saving is lost because someone could have paid to park in those spots.
CarolThomas, taking away FREE car parking would make them want to attend less meetings.
The Solution? Keep things as they are.
Change for Change’s Sake Doesn’t Always Equal Progress.[quote quote=147386]Some people take exception to my logic, often implying that this is somehow flawed but after working for a number of Welsh Councils and still being in touch with many officers and Councillors, I do assure you that my opinions are valid and are well sourced.
Councillor X. You have answered all my questions to your logic. As an ex Welsh Council official to me says it all. They couldn’t run a booze up in a brewery.
[quote quote=147425]What happened to the two electric cars the Council bought sometime ago ?[/quote][quote quote=147466]
What happened to the two electric cars the Council bought sometime ago ?
[/quote]
Meanwhile in the real world –
Cuts to school music services
Cuts to school budgets
Cuts to adult social care
Cuts to parks services
Cuts to jobs for learning disabled people
Cuts to PCSO numbers
etc, etc.
But hey! Car parking, right?
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