Tuesday 22 March 2011, author: admin

Totnes & District Chamber of Commerce
Chris McCarthy
Director of Environment, Economy and Culture,
Devon County Council

Dear Sir,

It has today been brought to my attention that you have placed a notice in last week’s Totnes Times announcing your intention to increase the hourly costs of on-street parking in Totnes by 50% from April 4th. On behalf of the Totnes and District Chamber of Commerce I wish to make the following observations.

This notice may well be your only legal obligation but as the sole means of communication with this community it is totally inadequate. Am I correct in thinking that you have not informed the local elected authority, Totnes Town Council? Is it not also the case that you have not informed the business community? Would it also be wrong to assume that only a minuscule part of the affected community of Totnes and district could possibly have seen this small notice? By any criteria of information sharing, democratic process, transparency or localism your small ad is more than unsatisfactory.

When seeking the community’s approval for the initial implementation of the pay and display scheme I and others were given an absolute assurance that this was NOT a revenue making scheme and that there would therefore most definitely NOT be any outlandish (e.g. 50%) or unconsulted rises in charges. This assurance now looks like a deliberate deception.

The pay and display scheme is meant to be a means to time limit parking, prevention of all-day parking etc. and not an income stream for DCC. Indeed, I have been informed that some of your Council’s proposals for other towns in the County incorporate  FREE parking for an initial period.

I have been told on more than one occasion that your officers have tried to persuade other towns to adopt this scheme by referring to it’s acceptance in Totnes. I have to inform you that should this arbitrary and unjustified increase go ahead in the present manner then the support, at least of the business community will have to be reassessed with the strong possibility of a resulting call to abolish the scheme altogether.

As part of your title refers to ‘Economy” I should not have to draw your attention to the very serious problems facing the local economies and the negative effect of any increased deterrent on visitor numbers no matter how small it may appear.

Even if you felt that this increase was justified I believe that you have an obligation to consult properly with the relevant stakeholders in the community. I therefore request most strongly that you cancel this increase.

I shall forward the text of this letter to all our members and local councillors.

Awaiting your reply.

Yours sincerely,
Paul Wesley
Chairman, Totnes and District Chamber of Commerce