Council defend parking charges as Welsh Conservatives blast ‘burden of revenue raising placed on drivers’

Leading Councillors at Wrexham Council have defended their parking charges policies after the Shadow Local Government Secretary Mark Isherwood AM criticised local authorities across Wales for ‘pocketing’ profits.

A Freedom of Information request from the Welsh Conservatives revealed local authorities in Wales ran a surplus of £10,065,347 in 2017/18 from parking charges and fines, 25% more than the previous year. The FOI covered a year beforehand, but that is not referenced in comments about Wrexham.

Cardiff and Swansea city councils generated returns of £3.9m and £2.7m, respectively, in 2017/18, both increases on the previous year, that the Conservatives noted are run by Welsh Labour.

They added, “Wrexham and Caerphilly county borough councils both saw huge rises in their profits as their surpluses increased by 245% and 436%, respectively”.

Further Wales-wide stats are included, “Bridgend, Newport, and Pembrokeshire all registered deficits, meaning the local authorities were spending more money implementing parking charges than they were raising from them. Flintshire had recorded deficits for the last three consecutive years despite increasing car parking charges. The four councils cost taxpayers £1,525,605 last year alone.”

“Councils have to pay Non-Domestic Rates (NDR) on their own car parks, which goes into a Welsh central pot, meaning money raised by a council might be redistributed elsewhere.”

Mark Isherwood AM, said: “These statistics show two different problems raising from the same issue: either councils are making money from the people keeping the high-street alive or are running inefficient services to charge drivers simply for the sake of it.

“Although it is right money raised this way is reinvested in public services, the burden of revenue raising should not be placed on drivers who already have to pay considerable and recurring costs towards something that is a necessity, not a luxury.

“Additionally, those councils which are losing money with their parking costs must realise they face a choice between making them cost-efficient or abolishing them altogether.

“However, the story here is that the Welsh Labour Government’s local authority settlements are starting to bite, forcing councils to squeeze more and more money from the workers and shoppers that are powering local economies.”

We asked Wrexham Council over the claims of huge rises in profits of the local car parks.

Cllr David A Bithell, Lead Member for Environment and Transport, said: “We produce an annual report on parking services which covers income and expenditure. This is published on our website, and the latest report is due out in the next few weeks.

“Our parking charges are very competitive compared with other authorities, and we offer many seasonal discounts and free car parking initiatives – like we are currently undertaking this Christmas in Wrexham.

“All of our car park income is reinvested in to our service.”

With the parking blast emanating from the Welsh Conservatives we asked the Deputy Leader of the Council, and Welsh Conservative himself, Cllr Hugh Jones on he agrees with the comment from AM Isherwood that Wrexham Council are an authority ‘making money from the people keeping the high-street alive’.

Cllr Jones told us: “I support the current car parking policy that has been recognised by local businesses as supporting the Town Centre and businesses by its competitive pricing and ‘free days’ for special occasions. We are restricted by the appalling settlement from the Welsh Government.”

The Wales-wide FOI data supplied is below:

The release also includes the specific Wrexham based data (via an embedded image in a spreadsheet thus terrible quality) indicating a range of data not referenced in the above comments.

The top figure of +245% rise in surpluses for Wrexham would be a -41% drop if the 15/16 figures were used against the 17/18 numbers. Likewise revenue from parking dropped -15% for that comparison.

Similarly parking fines show and increase of 49% when 15/16 is compared to 17/18.