Issue - meetings

Any county councillor may, by giving notice to the Proper Officer by 9 am on the working day before the meeting, ask a question on any matter in respect of the Cabinet Member’s delegated powers.

The number of questions which may be asked by any councillor at any one meeting is limited to two (or one question with notice and a supplementary question at the meeting) and the time for questions will be limited to 30 minutes in total. As with questions at Council, any questions which remain unanswered at the end of this item will receive a written response.

Questions submitted prior to the agenda being despatched are shown below and will be the subject of a response from the appropriate Cabinet Member or such other councillor or officer as is determined by the Cabinet Member, and shall not be the subject of further debate at this meeting. Questions received after the despatch of the agenda, but before the deadline, will be shown on the Schedule of Addenda circulated at the meeting, together with any written response which is available at that time.

Councillor John Sanders had given notice of the following question to the Cabinet Member for Transport

“As it is proposed to raise the tariff for parking in city centre car parks, will the Cabinet Member for Transport now consider withdrawing car parking charges associated with Controlled Parking Zones?"

Councillor Rodney Rose:

The purpose of these changes to the on-street parking tariffs is to bring the charges more into line with those in place in the city centre car parks.  From a traffic management perspective the pricing mechanism should ideally result in around 85% occupancy of the spaces to ensure that drivers have a good chance of finding a space without driving around waiting for one to become free.  It is, therefore, not possible to estimate what impact these changes will have on the overall parking revenue.  It is, however, not expected that any increase in the revenue would be of sufficiently significant a level to enable any changes to the cost of parking permits.

Supplementary question:

Councillor Sanders commented that the main purpose of the proposals was to bring on-street charges into line with City Council car park charges. He queried this as there were costs associated with the running of a car park such as maintenance and security, including staffing which there were not for on-street parking. He accepted that there might be a wish to raise more money from parking but was concerned that if there was no intention to withdraw car parking charges from Controlled Parking Zones then why was only this type of revenue being reviewed. He referred to the free parking available at weekends and to visitors which he felt that the County Council was entitled to reintroduce.

Councillor Rose replied that in November 2009 he had stated his intention to harmonise on-street parking with car parking charges so that drivers would not drive round looking for a cheaper parking space with the objective of reducing congestion. The aim was not to raise money.

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