Popular spots by coast hold car park title

GWYNEDD TOPS FOR PARKING FUNDS TALLY

SIX of North Wales’ top earning car parks raked in almost £1 million over the last year.

Gwynedd had the most lucrative site in the region, the main car park in Barmouth, which brought in £273,290 between April 2016-17.

Other top earners included Mold’s New Street which earned £163,430.45 and Vicarage Gardens in Conwy which brought in £198,940.07.

The lowest earning car park was in Flintshire at Llwynegrin Hall, Mold earning just £386.50.

Rob Triggs, Mayor of Barmouth, called for more of the money collected in the car park to be spent in the town: “There is a 10 per cent levy from the car parks that goes to projects in the town but ideally we would like the whole income form the car parks to be kept locally.

“It is the busiest car park in the town because it’s next to the beach and there are days when we could do with a car park twice its size.

“We could use the money from this car park for so many projects locally like improving the harbour, works on the footpaths on the mountains and salting the back roads in bad weather.”

A Gwynedd Council spokesman said: “Any income raised from car parking fees in the council car-parks is re-invested in the parking provision across the county.

“Parking fees were reviewed in 2015 in an attempt standardise the fees across the county. The changes brought fees up to date and incorporate the effects of inflation and changes to VAT since the last changes to parking fees in 2007.

“The council makes every effort to keep increases to a minimum and in some cases fees are now lower than they were before the changes introduced in 2015.”

Steve Jones, Flintshire council’s chief officer streetscene and transportation said the way council’s run their car parks can help to encourage business in towns.

“Car parking charges in Flintshire have been set at levels which discourages long stay commuters from taking up the central town centre spaces which are intended for shoppers and visitors, encouraging them instead to use the out of town car parks.

James Price, campaign manager at the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “Whilst it’s right that people pay for services they use, councils shouldn’t seek to extract too much from road users, especially with all the other ways they are taxed. This money raised should be used to prevent taxes going up any further.”