Cllr Frank Keegan is looking in to the amount of income generated from Penalty Charge Notices (PCN) in Alderley Edge as part of an exercise to see if the village is getting fair value for money from Cheshire East Council (CEC).
He told fellow councillors at last week's Parish Council meeting that parking tickets have generated £300,000 in Alderley Edge since they were introduced in 2008 but the money has all been spent.
Cllr Keegan said "I'm part way through an exercise with CEC. When it's all the complete the intention is to find out what they're getting in parking income and what's our share of that. What's come out so far is that CEC take a percentage which is applied by the officers like Paul Burns, not the accountants.
"The costs of staff doing the penalty notices in Alderley Edge is something like £55,000 a year but the traffic warden only comes 4 or 5 mornings a week so its five half days so it can't possibly be £55,000 a year.
"The income generated since the start has been £300,000 and they're making a loss on that because of the allocation of overheads."
Cllr Keegan wants to know what is actually in the overheads, how they are allocating it and to ensure that the balance is spent on road schemes in the area.
He added "More and more the onus is going to be on parish councils to make sure their getting their fair crack of the whip on expenditure."
Cllr Keegan is asking CEC for more information and will report back to parish councillors on his findings at next month's meeting.
Comments
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I'm rubbish at arithmetic but that looks like around £22.50 per hour for the traffic warden, assuming he works 20 hours per week, every single week of the year. I am aware that the hourly rate for some Council officers is breathtakingly high, but I'm fairly sure that the Alderley traffic warden is probably paid something like minimum wage, ie £6.19 per hour,
Could that mean that, every time the traffic warden earns £6.19, somewhere in the CEC's mighty maw, around £16 goes somewhere else? Even allowing for administrative charges and my abysmal arithmetic that sounds disproportionate. Stick with it Frank, you're bound to get a better result than mine!
Far be it from me to correct a lady about being rubbish at arithmetic, but it would actually work out at £55 ph!!
Seriously though, I agree with Elaine, sound like someone's pulling a fast one with the numbers!!
There continues to be a dangerous "funnel" where two lanes become one due to double parking on Alderley Road between Gusto and the restaurants opposite. No doubt the bean-counters will sit up and take notice AFTER there has been a fatal, head on collision.
If you extend the service to evenings too, the marginal cost could exceed £55k for the other half of the week/evenings due to shift work, more staffing if only AE have evening parking. When Manchester introduced later evening parking chardges, it didn't go down at all well with local businesses or visitors.
I also would like to suggest that if AEPC wish to take some of this revenue, they should have to take on some of the costs of running it.
With regards to a previous post saying that the evening trade is piggybacking on the daytime shoppers who pay for parking, the bars etc still pay business rates so aren't getting anything for free.
Cheshire East Council seems to be very happy to accept the enormous amounts of council tax paid by residents of the large and beautiful properties in Alderley Edge and the substantial business taxes paid by local companies and, apparently, pocket the profits from the parking problems with which those same residents, businesses and visitors are burdened too. It would be interesting to know how those profits have been used used and why at least some part of the apparently substantial sum regularly raised is not available to the Parish Council to meet local needs.
Good luck with your exercise.