Parking fines instead of water charges?

April 1986

Encouraging Wexford’s two traffic wardens to write about a dozen more tickets per day is a viable alternative to water charges in terms of the amount of income it would bring for the Corporation.

That is according to calculations performed by Cllr. John Roche and now under consideration by the Assistant County Manager, John Quinlivan.

Last year, the Corporation made a clear profit of £10,000 from the pay parking system. That’s after paying the wardens’ salaries and various other expenses.

Included in that profit is the income from the Pay & Display system in operation in two car parks. It is Cllr Roche’s contention that the development of more such marking areas would generate considerably more profits.

Cllr Roche says he spent all day last Saturday going through the book of estimates on expenditure and income for the Borough, and is now more convinced than ever that there is no need for water charges at all.

He says that even if there was a 100 per cent compliance rate with paying the £25 water levy, it would bring in ‘only’ £50,000. This figures becomes less when genuine hardship cases are disregarded by way of waiver, and the figure becomes less again as legal fees would inevitably be incurred in seeking payment by those objectors who continue to refuse to pay.

He says this means the Corporation might be left with ‘just’ £30,000 to £35,000 of income from water charges. His calculations show that issuing ten to twelve extra parking fines per day would bring in approximately the same amount.

His proposals will be discussed at the annual estimates meeting next week.