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Higher parking fees failing to fill coffers
Sunday 28th August 2011, 10:00AM BST.
Officials have blamed lower than expected income from new car parking charges in Shropshire for a £375,000 black hole in their finances.
Shropshire Council hiked car park charges in some towns in April and introduced them in others for the first time, despite widespread public outcry.
But now it has emerged Shirehall officials have “concerns” the new charges are not raising as much revenue as they had forecast.
A revenue monitoring report to the council’s ruling cabinet this month said there are “initial concerns that income from car parking fees is down compared to the current year budget.”
The shortfall left the council’s car parks and bus stations budget for the current financial year £375,000 down in the first quarter.
But Councillor Simon Jones, Shropshire Council cabinet member for parking, said: “The action we took to avoid increasing on-street parking charges in Shrewsbury and Ludlow, along with the national trend of declining use of car parks, has impacted on the expected income from parking fees, although it is difficult to predict how the rest of the financial year will go against the set budget.”
In north Shropshire, market towns which had enjoyed free off-street parking for many years were hit with the charges for the first time.
Charging came to Wem in April and Ellesmere in May, with Whitchurch expected to come under the new regime soon.
Councillor Chris Mellings, a member of Shropshire Council for Wem and a town councillor, asked Shirehall for details of how the new regime had worked in Wem in April, May and June.
In reply, the council said £5,869 net was raised from Wem car parks during the period.
This included £1,295 from permit sales.
But the costs of preparing the town for the charges reached £20,720.
This covered the cost of ticket machines and signs in all Wem’s car parks.
Officials also revealed they had set “no specific income target” for the new charges across the county but hoped the council’s overall car parks and bus stations budget would show a £50,000 surplus at the end of the first year.
Councillor Edward Towers, mayor of Wem, said he hoped to work with other civic leaders to review the effectiveness of the charges.
He added: “We will have to see if Shropshire Council will realise the error of its thinking or harden it and perhaps want to increase the charges.”
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DOWN because people will not pay them all rather simple really buy on line.
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Or park on the pavement outside my front door.
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I’m no economist, but I’m fairly certain that this is a good illustration of ‘price elasticity of demand’ at work.
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Or in Layman’s terms:
you cant squeeze blood out of a stone.
Sainsburys and Tesco must be delighted!
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Apparently it makes a huge difference if the charges are under the control of the Town Councillors and not the County Councillors.
Can’t see it myself. We taxpayers pay for both types of councillor and some get paid for having both roles and presumably get the standard £12,500 and the £3,500 allowances before other expenses they can add on!
i should imagine they can all park for free at the Guildhall too!
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Surprise,surprise!
Maybe if SCC reduced the prices then more people woud use the car parks rather than find onstreet parking.
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What amazes me is that Sirehall seem surprised by this.
Car parking charges are just Council Tax increases by another name.
I don’t even bother to go into Shrewsbury town centre now to shop, another customer gone.
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Come to Brittany, most towns show how much FREE parking they have as you drive in.
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Serves them right for thinking they could squeeze more money out of motorists! The car park by the post office in Market Drayton used to be well used on week days. Now when you walk past it is nearly empty.You can only push people so far before they get fed up!
If they had left the charges as they were they would probably be getting more money than they are now, because more people would be parking there.
It does not take much common sense to see a full car park at the original charge vs a nearly empty one at the new charge would generate more money at the end of the day.
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Yes but how many were shoppers and how many were used by shop staff that couldn’t be bothered to walk the extra 100yds?
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I’m struggling somewhat with the math on this one ……
In a 3 month period, Shropshire Council says they are £375,000 in a particular budget area which they blame on a lack of users in their chargeable car parks ???
In the same period the car park in Wem raised a net amount of £5,869 INCLUDING monies from residents forced to pay to park in their own streets, the reason for such a ‘small’ income blamed on the £20,720 initial setup
investment.
Let’s be kind and pretend Wem actually raised the combined figure of £26,589 in the given period – this would suggest someone at Shirehall expected Whitchurch and Ellesmere to produce somewhere near £348,411 turnover to fill the void ?????
Glad I’m not a Shropshire Council Tax payer having to fork out for these buffoons !!!
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suprise suprise
they were told this would happen
typical council they are so inept they probably consider making 5k back on a 20k investment as a good business move for them!
not fit to run an egg and spoon race
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Sadly anyone with a commercial brain will explain slowly to the Council team who thought of increasing the prices that people like me will park somewhere else or just not Visit as often hence the reduced footfall in the Shropshire market towns.
Traders are reporting huge drops in revenue and footfall.
Sack these over paid, people who probably have never worked in the commercial sector and do not consider the down side to a polically motivated idea’s……
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And yet the public sector employees think that they are worthy of their inflated pay and conditions because they could do everything that private sector workers could do, only better….yeh, it really shows here doesn’t it?
These people really need to work in “the real world” for a few years.
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On principle, I like many others I see, park in Wem, do a shop in under an hour and leave pronto. That usually means the co-op and no other shop gets my custom, and dawdles in the library are a thing of the past.
They wonder why the costs don’t add up? One Saturday, I see TWO council workers there emptying the meters…overtime payments gone mad or jobs for the boys?
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The answer is in ALL of the above posts. If we can see it, how come these over-paid council employees can’t?
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rose coloured glasses i think
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A perfect demonstration of the law of diminishing returns – as the council was advised by traders, users and other rate payers. Perhaps the council thought it would be exempt from such economic factors.
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some one should take RESPONSBILITY for this and be sacked
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ALL short term parking charges in Shropshire should be ABOLISHED. Replaced by a simple parking disc system as used by councils who know what they are doing and realise that stopping people from parking in a town, destroys business which in the end will reduce the business rates they collect. ie. self defeating. For those numpties in the council who might be reading this, the disc is placed in the car and the owner sets the time of parking. You then have 2 hours to go about your shopping. The system keeps the car parks flowing and means that spaces are always available. Traders and workers in town can obviously purchase long term tickets at reasonable prices and park in a long term allocated car park. It is now time for our inept council to LISTEN to common sense and realise their mistake and sort out this problem instead of constantly allowing companies like TESCO to always get their own way and not listen to the people who actually vote them in and pay their inflated wages.
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The answer is so simple – all the people who have left critical comments here should get involved with their local parties and sort it out! Realy, really simple.
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If only it was that simple.
They all adhere to the party line and subsequently the council will rule by majority.
The above comments maybe critical but they are also constructive, unlike the numpties at Ivory Towers.
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What would that do?
Take the politics out of local government, it makes little difference and we could vote for councillors to represent local views through their ability instead.
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higher price = lower use… funny that
THEY WERE WARNED THIS WOULD HAPPEN!!!
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A quick commercial lesson for the people at the council.
If you have 2 lorries each loaded with apples and cost them at 10p each apple for one lorry and £5 each apple for the other load, which load will make you the most money…difficult one , I know!
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