Olly Wells

Former Liberal Democrat Councillor for Knaphill Learn more

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Further information on the Overview and Scrutiny of Car Parking in Woking

by admin on 27 September, 2010

Following my post in August on Car Parking being looked at by the Overview and Scrutiny Committee, the results of the  survey from the summer are available here – Car Parking Survey Results.

At the committee meeting on Monday 20th September to discuss the outcomes from the first meeting on this issue the following proposals were made and passed by the committee as recomendations to the Woking Borough Council Executive:

That the Overview and Scrutiny Committee recommends to the Executive that it:

Maintains current charges from the 1 January 2011, not increasing charges due to the increase in VAT;

Maintains the current charge of £1.10 per hour into the 2011/2012 financial year;

Doubles the provision of parent and child parking in Woking town centre car parks; and

Employ measures to cut down the cost of providing overnight car parking for example turning off lights where possible or by closing some car parks overnight;

 

The Liberal Democrat members of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee additionally recommend to the Executive that it:

Reduces Sunday town centre parking charges to £1.50 per day in the next budget;

Investigates the cost and benefit of the sale of Victoria Way Car Park or other car parking asset and possibly introduce competition into town centre parking;

Carries out a business appraisal of running an electric powered shuttle service between Woking town centre and outlying villages in an effort to diversify car parking revenue in line with the car parking definition outlined above; and

Seeks to reduce the Council’s dependency on car parking income, through investing in alternative income generating assets.

 

The Conservative members of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee additionally recommend to the Executive that it:

Remove the 30 minute charge;

Consider the introduction of a night charge of 40 pence per hour from 7.00pm until 6.00am;

Leave Sunday charges unaltered;

Only consider a park and ride if capacity in the car parks is consistently insufficient; and

Review the environmental charging bands in order to give a greater incentive to the lowest emission vehicles rather than appearing to penalise larger vehicles

 

These proposals were reported in the Woking News and Mail accurately, but the article contains a slight over simplification in that it says that the report was split into three parts to keep the peace.  In more detail the report was split into three parts to show the executive where the committee was able to agree, along with where it did not, without preventing the views of either the Conservative or the Liberal Democrat members reaching the executive.  This was done as it was felt that to prevent one group from expressing its views over the other, at this stage in the process would be anti-democratic, as it is the executive that has the power to make recommendations on this to a Full Council meeting and not the Overview and Scrutiny Committee.

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  1. […] car parking amendments at the Overview and Scrutiny Committee at Woking Borough Council are discussed over at Cllr Olly […]

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