POWYS County Council is set to hold a full review of car parks amid concerns that higher parking prices are driving people out of town centres.

The announcement was made at a meeting of Powys County Council on Thursday, July 20 and saw a motion calling for a review dropped.

Before the meeting, Cllr Gareth E Jones from the Independents for Powys and Cllr Graham Breeze of the Independent group had joined forces and submitted a motion to be debated by councillors.

This follows concerns that the increase in car park charges from April was putting people off visiting town centres and businesses are suffering due to the lack of footfall.

Before the meeting, an amendment to the motion had been put forward by Liberal Democrat councillors, Glyn Preston and Danny Bebb.

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They tweaked the original motion by extending the timescale for a review.

Instead of having all the work done by the council meeting on October 5, the amendment sought to have the terms of reference and timetable of the review sorted out by then.

County Times: Cllr Gareth E JonesCllr Gareth E Jones

When the item came up for discussion Cllr Jones said: “I’ve spoken to Cllr Breeze and if Cllr Jackie (Charlton) can confirm she will undertake a review of car parking charges and that review will include members from all groups, then I would be happy to withdraw the motion.”

He added that an answer by Cllr Charlton to a question by a member of the public had indicated that a review is imminent.

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Cabinet member for highways and transport, Liberal Democrat Cllr Charlton said: “It gives me great pleasure to confirm we will be doing a car parking review in the way you have suggested.”

Cllr Breeze said he was also happy to withdraw the motion.

In their motion both Cllrs Jones and Breeze had claimed that the increase in car parking charges based on usage figures from 2021/2022 would generate £317,000 for the council.

The intention of the price hike when it was agreed as part of this year budget was to generate an extra £50,000.