My earlier posts about off street car parking charges are now slightly out of date as these proposals have now been noted by the executive and will be considered for the next municipal year.  It is a little disappointing that we do not know the outcome of this process yet, but I am glad that the proposals are being considered.

The Woking Borough Council Overview and Scrutiny Committee recently looked into council operated car parking in the town centre.  Following reports and presentations from officers, councillors debated changes to the operation of the car parks, carried out research and made recommendations.

Liberal Democrat and Conservative Councillors made joint recommendations where they agreed and separate recommendations where they were not able to agree, this included doubling the provision of parent and child parking, keeping the parking charges at their current level for the rest of the municipal year following the VAT increase from January and finding ways to reduce the cost of keeping the car parks open overnight.

Liberal Democrat members recommended that the fee for parking all day on a Sunday be reduced from £3 to £1.50 and that the 30 minute charge should be retained as it allows people to park for 30 minutes and only pay for 30 minutes, rather than paying for a full hour.  Both of these recommendations were made with prosperity of local residents and businesses in mind, it is vital that the council supports local residents and local businesses for the economic vitality of our town.

Liberal Democrat members were also concerned that as Woking Borough Council has monopoly control for car parks in Woking and dependence on funding from these that it would be desirable for Woking Borough Council to investigate the sale of a car park and investment in alternative sources of transport revenue such as electric powered shuttle buses.

Conservative recommendations included keeping the Sunday parking charge at the current level for all day parking, removing the 30 minute charging band, thereby charging people who park for less than an hour for the full hour and the introduction of overnight charges to park in the car parks

The Conservative proposals also included reviewing the Council’s environmental charging bands as they felt that these appeared to penalise larger vehicles rather than giving incentive to the lowest emission vehicles.  I am concerned that this could lead to less incentive for drivers to opt not to drive more polluting cars and was unable to support this.