At Cheshire East Council’s latest Highways Committee, requests by Councillors to discuss in public, how much the Council spends on individual car parks and how much income it receives from them, were refused.
“The council, which says it is ‘open and fair’ in its corporate plan, was asked by two members of its own highways and transport committee for a breakdown on the car parks – and was told that information would be disclosed during councillor briefings, which are always held behind closed doors.”
“The refusal to discuss the matter in public at a highways committee meeting, as was requested by the councillors, comes after red-faced highways bosses had to admit to the local democracy reporting service recently that Crewe’s new £11 million car park made a loss of nearly £70,000 in its first six months of operation.”
“Last month it was revealed that an Alsager car park which cost Cheshire East nearly £9,000 to upgrade so parking charges could be introduced, is bringing in just £17 a day in income!”
At Thursday’s meeting of the highways and transport committee, Cllr Sue Adams (Disley, Con) asked for a capital and revenue expenditure summaryby car park and income by car park.
She added; “And I think it will be a good idea to look at the period from the start of the changes in charging, beginning of December to the end of March, and then review it after that every six months.”
“Committee chair Mark Goldsmith (Wilmslow, Ind) said: “That's not something we've ever done before.” “We will be reviewing the budgets and how much money we raise and how much we spend, that’s part of the committee's process, but not on the individual granular level like that, which is really the officers’ domain.”
“Willaston councillor Allen Gage (Con) said: “If that's the officer's domain, surely it should be in the public domain as well and, obviously, we can have those figures released to the committee.”
The Director of highways said more information could be provided but ‘whether we need a formal report to a committee I’m not sure that’s actually necessary’. They added: “I can certainly set up a further briefing and answer those questions.”
Cllr Goldsmith (Ind) then told the meeting: “We are not reviewing the free parking for some towns, we are not going back there” “Every town and every car park is expected to pay its way on an equal basis as well, and I suspect that’s the reasons wanting to understand the detail, because we’ve never asked for it before.”
(Article By Belinda Ryan (Local Democracy Reporter) 04.04.25)
Conservative Councillors on the Highways Committee have since expressed their frustration that such basic financial information is not being shared with Councillors and the public. In addition that the Committee system that was supposed to be the vehicle for a more open and transparent council is clearly not delivering.
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