Issue - meetings

(Cabinet Member with Special Responsibility Councillor Thomas)

Report of Corporate Director (Regeneration).

(Cabinet Member with Special Responsibility Councillor Thomas)

(Councillor Archer left the meeting during consideration of this item and before the vote.)

The Corporate Director (Regeneration) submitted a report asking Members to consider the Annual Review of Parking Fees and Charges for 2010/11.

The options, options analysis, including risk assessment and officer preferred option, were set out in the report as follows:

Option 1

This option is not to implement any parking fees and charge increases in 2010/11.

The annual review of parking fees and charges is an opportunity for the City Council to review parking charges in line with budgetary commitments and the aims and objectives of the Parking Strategy. The revenue from parking is an important source of revenue for the Council and it assists with maintaining and continuing to improve the parking service that is provided. Although parking usage and pay and display income has been fairly positive in the present economic climate there is no evidence to suggest that usage and income would increase as a result of not increasing parking fees and charges. This option therefore does not meet the budgetary commitment included in the 2010/11 Draft Budget.

In terms of the budgetary position within the off-street parking service, reductions in excess of £60k have already been included in the 2010/11 draft budget through a combination of efficiency savings and the new CPE arrangements previously approved by Cabinet. Funding the shortfall from the remaining off-street parking budgets is likely to result in no reactive or planned maintenance or minor improvements being carried out during 2010/11 on the 2,900 spaces that are provided on 43 car parks throughout the district, for which there is currently a combined budget totalling £61.4K. This is contrary to the parking strategy that includes an objective to provide a high quality service through a number of objectives that can only be delivered through the proactive management of maintenance budgets. This will also have health and safety implications and increase the risk of accidents and personal injury claims arising from not being able to respond to reported faults and the twice yearly condition assessments that are undertaken. It is not possible to quantify the cost of any additional claims but these could have the potential for exceeding the required budget shortfall/maintenance savings.

It is therefore likely that this option would result in the revenue shortfall having to be met from another Service or function of the Council. As it falls outside of the current budget framework, if taken forward this option would need to form part of Cabinet’s budget proposals, for subsequent consideration and approval by Council.

Option 2

This option is aimed primarily at achieving the budgetary target that has been included in the 2010/11 Draft Budget whilst being consistent with the aims of the Parking Strategy.

This option achieves the budgetary commitment with estimated additional income of £60,000. This option only  ...  view the full minutes text for item 114