Town Centre Parking Charge Debate Back On Agenda

Calls for more to be done over town centre parking charges have been made again by members of the Town Centre Forum – despite a robust defence of pricing by Wrexham Council.

In what turned out to be a lengthy debate on car parking charges, members of the Town Centre Forum yesterday asked Wrexham Council for clarity over changes made to the tariff 12 months ago – with questions raised on why more hadn’t been done. A data sheet of car park usage, copied at the footer of this article, was presented by the Council.

Speaking at yesterday’s meeting, Town Centre Forum Chairman Nigel Lewis said: “This topic has dominated the Forum over the summer months, mainly due to the pricing increases. Up to October we had heated debates, we then took this offline and had meetings with Councillor Pritchard and put various representations in on how the business sector feels about the parking charge changes.

“You will have seen in the press from last month there is free parking on three events across the next 12 months, but also it states that it is the end of any further discussions on charges over the next 12 months.

“I wrote to Cllr David Bithell, as did the Federation of Small Businesses and the Wrexham Business Group. We are looking to reinstatement of the two to three hours tariff band in short term car parks and we feel we have been ignored.”

The subject of car parking fees in Wrexham Town Centre has been ongoing for almost 12 months, with some the parking fees increasing in 2014, plus changes to times of tariffs. Parking has often been a hot topic of debate in the monthly Town Centre Forum meetings, with members regularly asking the Council to reassess the tariff.

Lead Member for Environment, Cllr David Bithell defended the Council’s parking charge policy saying: “The council are looking to save £15.5m next year and this is a income generator, but we do not see it as a cash cow. If you look over the last two – three years our income has decreased.

“We have tried to look at parking but it is quite difficult as it is a juggling and balancing act and we are trying to support the town, but we are mindful of the fact we have to support our services.”

Ruling out any changes this year he stated: “It is not my intention to take a further report back to the Executive Board” explaining that the current tariffs need time to bed in before data can be fully analysed.

One topic raised throughout the meeting was the loss of the three hour parking in the town centre, with many car parks currently offering a stay of up to two hours. However an incentive has recently been introduced in the Peoples Market car park which allows for £2 for all day parking.

Ruth Rees, from Martin Rees Jewellers on Chester Street said: “In the business community we would want to be included in the discussions. We appreciate the motives, but it would have been nice had the business community been included.

At this point the meeting was told that ‘positive feedback’ from the Town Centre Forum on some aspects of the new parking tariff policy had been fed back, and was used as an example of such business community input.

Ruth Rees responded: “It would be bonkers for us not to support it”

Going on to criticise the lack of a 3 hour option she said: “Every week in my shop someone says they don’t have long left on their car park. It would have been nice to sit around a table with yourselves and economic develop to get feedback from us at the sharp end.”

These feelings were echoed by Eagles Meadow Manager, Kevin Critchley who said people are being discouraged from having a ‘wander, shoping and food’ while in Wrexham.

Mr Critchley added: “I am unsure if the concern of the businesses has gotten across, the concern is we almost discourage people to stay over two hours. If you look at the rates from two – three hours is a huge step up in pricing.

“We are discouraging people to wander, shop and have some food. When I am looking at the October and December figures, do they not that is what’s happening?”

Mr Critchley offered his own analysis of the figures presented by the Council (data sheet below) and suggest people are switching to two hours rather than paying more for four, and said the patterns were in the data showing this. He said: “The council are throwing away a source of revenue stopping people from paying extra 50p or £1 for extra hour, the figures suggest that you are throwing that money away?”

Cllr Bithell disputed this saying: “There is no figures to compare there as the tariff previously does not exist.

With Mr Critchley managing Eagles Meadow, home to the now famously expensive car park, Cllr Bithell said: “I am not going to miss the opportunity to compare to Eagles Meadow, we are quite competitive.

“I have written to all private car park operators locally and had no letters back so far. I am not expecting they are queuing up to say ‘ok we are supporting the Council initiatives’.

“We provide reasonable car parking charges compared to private operators. We are doing a review and looking at the overall spaces, we are not obliged to do it. I have noted the concerns from business and councillors, but the reality is for me as a Lead Member is we balance the books in our department.”

Questions were also raised regarding the free town centre parking which has been announced for the Wrexham Food Festival, Annual Play Day and Small Business Saturday. The incentive, which was unveiled last month will offer free parking in all Council run car parks for the three events.

Ruth Rees said: “Can you explain why you took the decision to do something we did not ask for, the free days, which was quite costly, rather than offers to help longer dwell time?”

Speaking about the free parking days incentive, Cllr Bithell said: “It started from the successful Small Business Saturday and we built on that and looked at what days we could support. We are looking to promote and boost Wrexham and give it an early start, rather than by doing it piecemeal and taking reports to the Executive Board.

Other forum members shared direct experiances of parking charges, with one member explaining the hidden loss to Wrexham Council by changing tariffs: “I pulled out the Peoples Market due to the car parking charges, the £9k rent has gone from the Council, and the unit is still not let.

“You have 150 units in the proximity of the carparks and they are under optimised. I would appeal to look at the wider picture at how much revenue is being lost not just £40k”

Wrexham.com suggested that data that we and others have had to FOI previously is presented to the forum freely quarterly as it appeared to provide some meat on the bones of the ongoing parking debate. The document circulated by the Council is below, and there was an indication that such data could be made available every six months.

An amusing, perhaps serious solution to increasing town centre football was made by Cllr Bill Baldwin who suggested that the bypass could be closed and the traffic is sent into the town, however he did warn that pre-bypass days did cause major traffic issues!

Due to the lengthy nature of the above topic various items were not covered by the Town Centre Forum meeting and are being deferred to next months meeting, they include discussions on: Vibrant and Viable Places, the Town Centre ‘Masterplan’, the Peoples Market, lighting on Bank St, and the potential closure of The Vic studio.