Agenda and minutes

To provide an opportunity for Members and Officers to declare any disclosable pecuniary and non-pecuniary interests in any item on the agenda.

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To provide an opportunity for Members to declare the existence of a party whip in relation to any item on the agenda.

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There were no members of the public wishing to speak

            To give consideration to the final report of the Task and Finish Group which conducted a scrutiny review of Cheshire East Car Park Management.         

Consideration was given to the final report of the Task and Finish Group, which conducted a review of Cheshire East Car Park Management. The aim of the review was to ensure that Cheshire East Council’s car parks were being managed in a way that assisted the vitality and viability of town centres and villages.

Members raised concern that the Town and Parish Councils had not been consulted during the review and that the group had not considered all the evidence available. It was highlighted that the investigation had been curtailed in order to meet Cabinet and budget timescales. In order to rectify this issue it was agreed that whilst Members were happy with the content of the report, amendments should be made to the recommendations to Cabinet.

The Portfolio Holder informed Members that, in line with the wishes of the Make It Macclesfield Business Group, he had set up a pilot car parking scheme, which allowed 4 hours parking for the price of 2 in 5 of the Boroughs car parks. The pilot would run for 6 months and be of no cost to the Council.

With regard to p22 – Parade Car Park, Alderley Edge, it was agreed that the report should be amended to reflect the fact that the Ward Councillor had been consulted as was happy with the proposals.

The Committee thanked the Task and Finish Group for the final report and its hard work during the review.

RESOLVED

1.    That the final report be submitted to Cabinet for approval, subject to the recommendations being amended to read:

A.    That Objective 2 of the Car Parking Strategy be amended to include specific reference to car parks that have no charges. Objective 2 should read as follows - “To provide excellent parking facilities at an appropriate charge (which may include a zero charge) to customers and Council Tax payers”.

B.    That the actions points relating to Objective 2 of the Car Parking Strategy be amended to allow more flexibility in the development of car park tariff structures. The second bullet point should read as follows - “The scale of charges should ideally conform to a consistent pattern across stay periods in all towns.”

C.   That where possible tariff structures should provide broadly consistent charges from one stay period to the next (i.e. cost per hour is the same for 1-2 hours as 3-4 hours) up to four hours.

D.   That whilst tariff structures should ideally conform to a consistent pattern tariffs for each individual car park should be set based on the characteristics of the car park, demand for that car park, desired service users, local needs and relationship with other car parks in the same town.

E.    That to achieve Cheshire East Council objectives each town or village should have individual parking management action plans based on the characteristics of the town or village and produced in partnership with the Parking Manager, Ward member, Town or Parish Councils. The action plans should achieve the Council’s over arching  ...  view the full minutes text for item 36.