Sunday, December 1, 2013

County's quest for extra parking spaces in Llan

County council officers are looking at a plan to create extra spaces for vehicles by removing some of the recycling bins from the Market Street car park.

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/

2 comments:

  1. 10 x £600 = £6000 rather than the quoted £60,000.

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  2. It 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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