On Tuesday 15th February I sat in Full Council from 10:30am until 9:10pm to debate the new budget. I will spare you a complete summary since the agenda pack was 597 pages of A4… front and back! I will instead pick out two elements that grabbed headlines.
The Council proposed an increase to parking charges across its carparks by 10p. The fact is that there is a finite amount of budget available to cover the many elements of our lives that Wiltshire Council supports. The proposed car parking charge increase will help to support the Council’s responsibility over Adult Social Care, Children’s Services and much, much more.
The main argument voiced by the opposition against the increase was that “it will kill the high street”. I am a huge champion of small businesses and for almost 15 years my business has worked with hundreds of bricks-and-mortar retailers desperately trying to compete in an ever-evolving landscape. I was annoyed to hear such a misinformed statement about parking charges. The high street began to struggle 40 years ago with the creation of out-of-town retail parks – all the shops you need on one site without the need to sit in town centre traffic. In the 90’s, developers realised that they could create an even bigger draw by adding a TGI Fridays and a bowling alley and it worked, even more of us abandoned the high street. This had nothing to do with parking charges, customers chose convenience and many high streets lost out.
Today even the out-of-town “leisure” developments are finding things tough because of the huge impact of the internet. Amazon has taken away the need to even get off the sofa. Thankfully Devizes has been evolving with some excellent restaurants and bars springing up, a beautiful cinema nearing the end of refurbishment, food pop-ups, beer festivals and more. By encouraging our high streets to provide the specific thing that Amazon cannot – an exciting experience – they will attract visitors back. Blaming the death of the high street on car parking charges reflects the blinkered attitude that has seen many high streets fail to evolve and unable to compete.
Later in the meeting I was deeply concerned by the proposed removal of financial support for our Lunch & Friendship Clubs. These small, local initiatives play a vital role in supporting residents. However, I was shocked to discover just how broken this system was. Marlborough, with a population of 8,000 has one single lunch club which received £68,000 in funding. The 3 clubs in Trowbridge (with a population of 44,000 people) were given just £9,000 combined. Are Marlborough residents worthy of £8.50 per person whilst Trowbridge residents deserve just 20p each? It doesn’t stop there – the system was closed to new clubs. If you wanted to start a new social initiative in your village with funding you could not, the books were closed.
I am confident that Market Lavington’s Tuesday Club and any new community venture will benefit more from the changes. The new budget presents a better way of working that will see the doors opened to new community ventures which need financial support. The money isn’t being taken away; it is simply being distributed in a much fairer way.
You may contact me about this or any other matter by email to dominic.muns@wiltshire.gov.uk or by phone on 07585 394 178.
