The City Council in Newport, has brought in limited free parking at selected locations around the city to encourage people to come and shop in Newport in an effort to boost trade within the town. This is a sensible idea in the run up to Christmas. Cwmbran already has a significant permanent amount of free parking in and around the town centre, something that does seem to attract people to shop in the town.
Elsewhere in the former County of Gwent, the abolition of free parking is firmly on the agenda in parts of Monmouthshire County Council (MCC) where a report to MCC's Economy and Development Select Committee has recommended a new charging system for all of the county's council-owned car parks. The committee is to consider revising charges on all of the authority's existing paid-for car parks, and introducing charges in car parks which are currently free in Chepstow, Monmouth, Abergavenny, Usk and Caldicot. No doubt the debate on abolishing free parking will concentrate minds in Monmouthshire...
Incidentally Cash strapped MCC is owed more than £4 million in unpaid debts for charges including meals on wheels, car parking fines and house repairs. MCC's Audit Committee (27th November) was told that Monmouthshire was owed £4.3 million in sundry debts at the end of October 2010. This figure did not include the amount owed to the authority in unpaid council tax. The total cumulative amount of council tax debt owed to the authority at the end of the last financial year was £3.6 million.
No comments:
Post a Comment