Drivers face charge over locked-in cars

ANYONE returning late to a council-run car park in Bridgend to find their car has been locked inside could soon be faced with a bill for the call-out charge.

Bridgend County Borough Council is looking at recovering its costs from people who don’t get back to their vehicles in time before the car park closes.

At the moment, if someone finds themselves locked into either the Rhiw or Brackla 1 multistorey car parks, they phone the council’s ‘oncall’ number which gets passed onto a private security company who then attend.

The security company charges the council for the call-out but no charge is made to the person who wants their car back.

On average, there are eight call-outs every month for the Rhiw and one a month for Brackla.

Bridgend council says each call-out costs £40 plus VAT meaning it costs the council around £4,320 every year.

The council locks the car parks at night due to issues of anti-social behaviour.

While Rest Bay Car Park in Porthcawl, Pencoed Park and Ride Car Park and Bowls Car Park are all locked at night as well, they are fitted with systems which allow vehicles to leave the car park. The three car parks allow pedestrian access 24 hours.

However the two multistorey car parks are completely locked.

In a report which came before cabinet members on Tuesday, May 16, corporate director for communities Mark Shephard says the council could either continue to absorb the costs for call-outs, charge the individual for them or refuse to attend call-outs altogether and advise the person they need to return the following day during operational hours to recover their vehicle.

He said the preferred option was to continue to attend call-outs but seek to recover costs from the individual concerned.

Cabinet members agreed with the officer’s recommendation that the authority investigate and implement, if appropriate, the recovery of out of hours release costs for council-owned car parks.