Issue - meetings

There were three members of the public present who wished to speak.

Mr Paul Bates, a member of Congleton Business Association and Congleton Partnership, was present to speak about car parking in Congleton. He stated that there are two types of business in Congleton; there are the national brands such as B&Q, McDonalds and Tesco all with there own car parks that are free of charge and the Independent businesses that rely on town centre car parks for their customers. He continued to suggest that an increase in car parking charges would hit trade and drive away customers from the independent shops and the construction of the Bridestone Centre will remove 162 parking spaces from the town centre. He also suggested increases would affect the lowest paid workers in the area and that office based business had already been lost to out lying areas due to the cost of parking in the town centre for employees. Finally he suggested that using higher prices to control the demand for parking in Congleton was unnecessary because there were always empty spaces on Congleton car parks and there was no need to discourage some people from parking in them.

Mr John Saville-Crowther, a Councillor on Congleton Town Council, attended the meeting on behalf of the Town Council to speak about parking charges. He supplied members of the Committee with a written statement and spoke on its contents. The statement referred to an independent review on the future of high streets conducted my Mary Portas on behalf of the Government. He stated that one of the recommendations in the review was that local areas could implement free controlled parking schemes that work for their town centres. He also stated that there is no shortage of car parking spaces in Congleton which suggests that there is a lack of shoppers in the town. He suggested a change in charges would result in a further reduction in shoppers and cause more businesses to cease to trade.

Mr Deen of the Timbersbrook Project attended the meeting to make a statement about the works in default of an enforcement notice, land north of Pedley Lane, Timbersbrook. He stated that having received a receipt for the costs of the enforcement action he had been unable to obtain from any one in the Council a breakdown of the costs to show how the final total had been reached. He suggested that some of the figures he was charged were higher than quotes he had received. He also suggested that the enforcement action may not have been carried out correctly due to the condition that the land was left in afterwards and a lack of notification at the closure of a right of way in order to carry out the enforcement.

The Chairman thanked each for attending and that their comments be noted.