Opposition councillors request meeting to review Wirral Council’s Cabinet decision to increase car parking charges by 20 pence and introduce new car parking charges in country parks
One of the decisions made by councillors on Wirral Council’s Cabinet, I’ve been meaning to write about since the Cabinet met last month was a decision to increase car parking charges (which has since been put on hold).
On the 19th June 2017, Wirral Council’s Cabinet agreed (see video below starting at 33:31 and photo above) to increase charges for parking at Council car parks on the Wirral by twenty pence and to introduce charges for parking where there had been no charges before (50p for an hour, £1 for 2 hours and £2 for all day) at Arrowe Country Park, Royden Country Park, Eastham Country Park and Thurstaston Country Park.
Please accept YouTube cookies to play this video. By accepting you will be accessing content from YouTube, a service provided by an external third party.
If you accept this notice, your choice will be saved and the page will refresh.
However for the country parks only, in a modification to the original proposals households could pay for a £50 annual permit instead of paying charges when they parked in the country parks.
There’s a long 21-page draft traffic regulation order that goes into all the details.
The Cabinet minutes were published and opposition councillors had five days in which the decision could be called in for review.
Six (or more) opposition councillors on Wirral Council “called in” the decision, so it now it won’t be implemented immediately but put on hold until the Business Overview and Scrutiny Committee meets.
There will be a special public meeting of the cross-party Business Overview and Scrutiny Committee starting at 4.00 pm on the 18th July 2017 in Committee Room 1 at Wallasey Town Hall, Brighton Street, Seacombe, CH44 8ED.
The Business Overview and Scrutiny Committee is composed of 9 Labour councillors, 5 Conservative councillors and 1 Liberal Democrat councillor on it.
There’s a long history to the parking charges issues and an earlier stage in the same decision was called in and was reviewed in March 2017. You can watch video of that meeting below.
Please accept YouTube cookies to play this video. By accepting you will be accessing content from YouTube, a service provided by an external third party.
If you accept this notice, your choice will be saved and the page will refresh.
Business Overview and Scrutiny Committee (Wirral Council) 13th March 2017
Usually after representations are made during the consultation period, a cross-party advisory panel called the Highways and Traffic Representation Panel meets in public and makes a recommendation to the Business Overview and Scrutiny Committee. The Business Overview and Scrutiny Committee then makes a recommendation onwards to the Cabinet (or Cabinet Member) for a decision.
As the Business Overview and Scrutiny Committee met for the first time yesterday evening since the Claughton by-election (when it decided the councillors to appoint to the Highways and Traffic Representation Panel), when the Cabinet had made the decision on the 19th June 2017, there were no councillors at that point appointed to the Highways and Traffic Representation Panel to consider the objections made during the consultation.
Increases to parking charges are on hold till at least the 18th July 2017. The Business and Overview and Scrutiny Committee can choose at that meeting to either:
a) uphold the Cabinet decision made on the 19th June 2017 (in which case the decision is implemented),
b) refer the matter back to Cabinet for reconsideration,
or
c) refer the matter to Council.
At the call-in meeting of the Business Overview and Scrutiny Committee on the 13th March 2017, councillors voted at the end of that meeting. 8 councillors voted in favour (Labour) and 6 councillors (Conservative and Liberal Democrat) voted against. So the decision taken by Cllr Phil Davies (Leader of the Council) at an earlier stage was upheld on a 8:6 vote.
If you click on any of the buttons below, you’ll be doing me a favour by sharing this article with other people.