On the 9th of December The News Published this article in which Fareham Borough Council was accused of wasting money.  Amid announcements of damaging spending cuts,

potential service cutbacks and staff redundancies, from which our council was

one of the worst hit in Hampshire, The News reported how the council were to

hand out free parking permits to all staff. 

Previously the permits were only awarded to “essential users”

and the new scheme raised concerns from an anonymous council employee.   According

to The News the employee worried that the scheme was a waste of money and that

it would take parking spaces in town from people who had actually paid for a

permit.

FarehamPeople contacted council leader Sean Woodward to

offer him the right of reply to the article in The News.  Here is what Sean had to say:

“The Council like other local authorities already had in

place an authorised car parking scheme.  The decision to be made was to

remove the scheme entirely which would have required compensation payments to

be built in to the salaries of affected staff or to make permits available to

all staff.  Legally it is not possible any more to only give to some staff

as successful discrimination challenges would have been possible.

A considerable number of employees have a contractual requirement to provide a

car to carry out their duties.  This is cheaper than providing them with a

council owned or leased car.  Such posts include Environmental Health

inspectors, mobile sheltered housing officers, Building Control Officers.

The authorised parking scheme was revised and extended following a review of

employee business travel arrangements which included a significant reduction in

allowances.

The number of employees who have taken up the opportunity for authorised

parking is 259.

The 259 park in the following car parks:

Osborn Road Multi-Storey car park (top floor and floor 4) = 189

Lysses long stay car park (limited to 70 spaces for FBC employees) = 70

Employees have been offered authorised parking in the less popular car parks.

 They face disciplinary action and a possible loss of the pass if they

park in the wrong place or outside working hours.

The authorised parking scheme was extended also to help reduce the impact of

displacement parking following the introduction of the residents parking

scheme.  We carefully monitor the use of our car parks and, should we

reach maximum capacity we would take action to release further spaces by asking

employees to move their vehicles to another location (such as Fareham Leisure

Centre).  A new Multi-Storey car park will be opening in summer 2011,

linked to the opening of Debenhams and this will provide us with even more car

parking capacity in the Town Centre.

Authorised parking to employees has been introduced as part of a review of

their terms and conditions which has contributed to the Council's efficiency

savings of £1.7m and is at no cost to the Council Tax which we intend to freeze

next year in the same way that we froze it this year.  This is despite the

16% reduction in government funding which has just been announced.  We

still set almost the lowest Council Tax in England

despite receiving one of the lowest levels of government grant.”