THE leader of Monmouthshire County Council has warned that the county's towns could be facing the imposition of on street car parking charges and congestion charges if plans to impose charges in its town centre car parks are called to a halt. During a heated debate at a environment select committee meeting, council leader Councillor Andrew Crump called on opposition councillors to provide viable alternatives to the controversial car parking charges. His comments followed the committee's decision to refer the decision, made by cabinet in August to introduce charges at previously free car parks, back to full council for discussion, with the meeting due to take place today (Thursday). "Go back to 1997, the then Labour administration introduced car parking charges. Initially I and fellow members were opposed to them, but the administration said they were under financial constraints. "I think if people think there is a row about charges now, the row we had in 1997 was a lot stronger," Councillor Crump said. "It gives us no pleasure to do this. Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to announce we are going to abolish car parking charges, but we live in the real world. "I feel more strongly about other issues, such as social services, I think it's wrong in this say and age people have to pay for domiciliary care. "Members have had plenty of opportunity to discuss the proposals and subsequently most of the decisions taken by cabinet has been to implement the budget set by full council at the beginning of the year." Councillor Bob Greenland agreed with Councillor Crump, "This council is responsible for balancing its budget. Back in the Autumn we debated the budget and the majority agreed with the budget going forward," he said. "Cabinet is responsible for implementing the budget and that's what they are doing. When they made their decision it was after a lot of consultation and £80,000 worth of concessions were made." Councillor Greenland attributed the need to increase car parking charges to the fact the council is underfunded by the Welsh Assembly Government. "This council is the worse funded throughout Wales. The formula the Welsh Assembly Government uses is quite biased against rural communities like Monmouthshire," he said. Before recommending the decision be sent to full council other committee members spoke of their concerns about the proposals. Councillor Phyl Hobson, one of the four councillors to sign the call-in request, said he believed, considering the impact parking charges would have on the public and the number of objections the proposals raised, all 43 councillors should be given the opportunity to represent their ward. Abergavenny Councillor, Douglas Edwards, echoed his thoughts, "Some 4-5,000 people have made an effort to sign petitions and many people have written to the council protesting to what, I call, an underhand charge, when we have seen considerable increases in council tax," he said. "Free car parks are important to shop workers, senior citizens and many residents. As a new councillor, it has been 12 months since I was elected, I am convinced there are areas inside the council where substantial savings can be introduced and I think it is grossly unfair to balance the budget by raising car parking charges." Fellow Abergavenny Councillor, Roger Harris, said that during the full council meeting to discuss the budget suggestions were made to find or save money which would have pre-empted the council having to try and raise money in "dubious" ways. "With car parking charges we don't know how much money we will get, in the same way as making 16 year olds pay for their higher education transport, we don't know how much money we will save,"Councillor Harris said. "I think it's vital it comes back to full council to let cabinet know what we are thinking." On a vote being taken it was agreed for the matter to be discussed at full council today (Thursday).
