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E-mail

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Telephone

0345 678 9000

Postal Address

Shropshire Council
Shirehall
Abbey Foregate
Shrewsbury
Shropshire
SY2 6ND

Agenda and minutes

Venue: Shrewsbury Room, Shirehall, Abbey Foregate, Shrewsbury, Shropshire, SY2 6ND. View directions

Contact: Julie Fildes  Committee Officer

Items
No. Item

32.

Apologies for Absence

Minutes:

Apologies for absence were received from Councillors Jonny Keeley, Dan Morris and Julian Dean.  Councillor Hannah Fraser attended as substitute for Councillor Keeley.

33.

Declarations of Interest

Minutes:

None were disclosed.

34.

Public Question Time

To receive any public questions or petitions from the public, notice of which has been given in accordance with Procedure Rule 14.  The deadline for this meeting is 10.00 am on Friday 9 February.

Minutes:

Members considered a letter received from Ludlow Town Council [copy attached to the signed minutes].  Councillor T Gill, Mayor of Ludlow Town Council was invited to address the meeting with his Council’s concerns as outlined in the letter received.

 

He explained that the Town Council were concerned that the proposed changes to the parking strategy would damage the economy of the town through reducing trade and asked that they be reconsidered. 

 

Councillor Gill advised Members of a black market trade in parking permits and requested that the Council should only issue parking permits to cars registered to the associated address.

35.

Member Question Time

To receive any questions of which members of the Council have given notice.  The deadline for notification for this meeting is 10.00 am on Friday 9 February.

 

Minutes:

Questions were received from Councillors Andy Boddington and Roger Evans and were made available to Members at the meeting.

 

Question from Councillor Andy Boddington

 

1)    Why is the Red Zone in Ludlow rated as Band 2 rather than Band 3, which would be more effective? A change to Band 3 would bring charges across the entire core town centre of Ludlow – both on street and in the central Castle Street car park – into a common framework that will be easy to understand and implement.

 

2)    The council proposes reducing pop and shop to five minutes. If it does so, will the council erect signs to inform drivers of the additional ten minute observation period? If not, why not?

 

The Director of Place and Enterprise gave the following response:

 

1)    The Red zone is located in the core town centre area and is currently used by resident permit holders, visitors, trades people and businesses. The intention of the strategy is to promote not only transport hierarchy and model shift but also to promote appropriate turnover. Residents who have purchased residents permits to park on street in close proximity to their homes currently have difficulties in finding a space, in particular in the red zone. The strategy is designed to encourage visitors and workers to park in appropriate preferably off street provision proportionate to their requirements although the option also remains for them to utilise the on-street provision subject to payment of the appropriate premium tariff.

 

2)    Yes, appropriate signage will be provided.

 

 

Question from Councillor Roger Evans

 

A       What is the expected income that the following parts of the new Strategy will generate for Shropshire Council and how much of this will be extra as a result of what is proposed to take place if the Parking Strategy as agreed by cabinet is finally approved please.

·           iii. That the car parks and on-street pay and display parking areas listed in table 4 of this report and respective specified tariff Bands are adopted within the proposed

strategy framework.

·           v. That the hours of charging using linear tariffs be extended until 8.00pm on all Bands 1 and 2 car parks and on Frankwell Main, Riverside & Quay car parks.

·           vii. That the new streamlined trade’s person waiver system be implemented as proposed, including anew fee of £20 per waiver.

·           ix. That the existing permitted concessionary parking period is reduced to 5 minutes, meaning that penalties cannot be issued until a minimum period of 15 minutes has elapsed.

 

B       I am in receipt of a letter from a disabled resident who has a blue badge. In the letter she says that she is having increasing problems trying to get a disabled car parking space in Shrewsbury. This is occurring both during the daytime and evenings. Are officers aware of this please. During both daytime and evening can we be told what measures will or are being put in place to maintain the number of disabled parking places.

 

The Director of Place and Enterprise  ...  view the full minutes text for item 35.

36.

Call In: Parking Strategy pdf icon PDF 59 KB

The decision of the Cabinet made on 17 January 2018 with regard to the New Parking Strategy has been called in by the Liberal Democrat Group, as detailed in the attached Call-In Notice.  The report considered by Cabinet is also attached. 

 

The Scrutiny Committee is asked to consider the decision taken by Cabinet on 17 January 2017.

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Chairman reminded Members that they were only to consider the issues raised in the Call-In notice submitted by the Liberal Democrat Group and attached to the Agenda.

 

The Director of Enterprise and Place gave a presentation on Shropshire Parking Strategy – Part 1 [copy attached to the signed minutes].  Members noted that a full consultation process had taken place before the Officers had drafted the proposal. The consultation had included evidence from other authorities as well as 20,000 lines of free text received from consultees in Shropshire.  He explained the matrix methodology and the scoring methods which underpinned the proposals.

 

The meeting was adjourned at 10.25am, at the request of the Liberal Democrat Leader to allow printed copies of the presentation to be obtained.  The meeting was reconvened at 10.40am.

 

The Parking Enforcement Supervisor explained that the parking strategy attempted to address long standing issues of parking problems in Shropshire and attempted to change customer behaviour in order to ensure that the parking provided was being used as intended. 

 

In answer to a Member’s question regarding the car park in Castle Square Ludlow, the Parking Enforcement Supervisor explained that market traders accounted for 30% of the car park’s capacity on market days.  Although, the maximum allowed time was 4 hours, there was a general practice of purchasing a second ticket once the first had expired to give long stay parking instead of the short stay designation.

 

The Director of Place and Enterprise outlined how the decisions on each car park’s banding had been determined, with each location falling into a specific banding between 1 and 7. 

 

In response to a Member’s query about the town score for Wem, the Director of Place and Enterprise went through the scoring system outlined in the presentation.

 

Members noted that car parking in Ludlow had to serve workers, shoppers and residents whose individual needs were often in conflict.  Members discussed the request that the Castle Square car park should be restricted to four hours only. The Parking Enforcement Supervisor responded that enforcing a four hour stay where a second ticket had been purchased was resource intensive and impractical.   He continued that a waiver already existed for market traders who purchased a permit.  Under the existing system the cost of the permit was £4 for the day, this was to be increased to £1 per hour.  It was anticipated that the increase in charges would encourage people working in Ludlow to go to the cheaper long stay carparks leaving more room for visitors and shoppers in the short stay carparks.


In response to a Member’s query the Director of Place and Enterprise explained that the policy would have a phased roll-out.  Data on usage would be collected using new machinery which would give more specific data on usage.  Once the new machines had been installed real time data could be collected.  He anticipated that 12 months worth of data would be required to identify pinch points and patterns.  A review would be undertaken once  ...  view the full minutes text for item 36.

 

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