The idea was revealed to members of Llangollen Town Council
by local county councillor Stuart Davies at their monthly meeting on Tuesday
evening.
Cllr Davies regularly attends town council meetings to give
updates on matters of relevance going on at county level.
Looking at the issue of local parking, which is controlled
by the county council, he said the aim was to double the present number of
spaces available in the town from 400 to 800 in the next two years.
County officers, he explained, were investigating a number
of ways of achieving this, including creating more spaces at Market Street.
“Our officers have been looking at the situation with the
recycling bins there and at times some of these are either empty or only a
quarter full,” he told members.
“If we took away, say, half of the bins it would mean we
could free up more car parking spaces.
“It we can free up 10 spaces that means the extra revenue
would amount to about £6,000 based on each space bringing in from £450 to £600
a year.
“We could then possibly get matched funding from the Welsh
Government to do things with locally.”
The Mayor, Cllr Bob Lube, said that although around 75 extra
parking spaces would be created at the planned new health centre, he feared
that because the Welsh NHS was not allowed to charge for parking these would be
“pinched” by people who were not patients or staff.
Cllr Davies replied that county council officers were
looking into this situation with a view to finding a solution.
* Cllr Davies also gave a short summary of the county
council’s current financial situation.
He explained that Denbighshire was looking to make a cut of
just over eight per cent in its budget, which had been brought about by the
county not having as large a population as had been thought, and was
consequently losing about £2 million of government support.
Cllr Davies also revealed how it had been suggested that
because of the financial situation community councils such as Llangollen Town
Council might be asked to take on responsibility for providing more services
than at present.
He said: “Llangollen Town Council pays for things like CCTV,
Christmas lights and flowers out of its precept (part of the council tax
apportioned to community councils) but there are some towns elsewhere in the
county that don’t do that, so we might be asking community councils to take on
more services in the future.”
Asked by Cllr Tony Baker about the provision of low-cost
housing in Llangollen, Cllr Davies said county officers were currently looking
at potential sites where these might be built.
He added that among the sites being investigated “in and
around town” was one with garages on it.
He also spoke of his concerns that not enough people were
putting down their names on the affordable housing register, which is
administered by the Cymdeithas Tai Clwyd organisation in Denbighshire,
Flintshire and Wrexham. More details on how register, he said, can be found on the Cymdeithas website at: http://www.taiclwyd.com/find-a-home/take-the-first-steps-to-affordable-home-ownership/
10 x £600 = £6000 rather than the quoted £60,000.
ReplyDeleteIt would be good to have more spaces in town for residents who are less able or live on the outskirts. But if the number of spaces were to double, it would simply encourage more tourists to visit by car, rather than other means. This would mean more traffic, congestion and misery for locals. Perhaps the county council should be spending time looking harder at how we can encourage people to visit by coach, bus, by bike or even on foot.
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