by Ian Ridley

Costs due to Covid-19, combined with years of cuts by central government, means that we’re faced with a choice between widening car park charges or the council being effectively declared bankrupt.

Update: please sign a petition the Conservative MP here to provide the money owed to Oadby and Wigston.

Bringing in more car park charges is not something I wanted to do when I was first elected 2 years ago. Car parking is not “free” in Oadby and Wigston: you need a ticket if you stay for more than 3 hours and the car parks are heavily subsidised by local tax payers, whether they drive or not.

Thanks to sound financial management, Liberal Democrat Councillors have successfully fought for decades to keep short stay car parking free in Oadby and Wigston.

In the last decade this fight has become more difficult in the face of swinging cuts by the Conservative government: In 2010, Oadby and Wigston’s budget* was £8.4 million. In 2022 it will be £6.4 million, a fall of almost a third.

Councillors and Officers have worked to make savings so the council could afford to keep the free short-stay parking. Staffing has been reduced, technology more widely used and councillor allowances frozen or cut over the last 5 years.

One thing that surprised me after being elected was to discover that the rises in council tax don’t cover the cuts to money from the Conservatives in central government. Council tax rises are “capped” by law; they can’t rise by a certain amount each year.

This is a good thing in my view: Council tax is not a “fair” tax. It is purely done on the size of your home, not how many people live there or their ability to pay. Yet by capping how much councils can raise this way, the Conservatives have ensured that we have the worst of both worlds: more and more burden on local council tax payers whilst councils are still forced to cut services.

So even with these changes, extra money had to be found. That’s why garden waste charges came in and various other fees.

Covid: the last straw and a broken Conservative promise

The pandemic led to extra costs and lost income for several council services, such as the unplanned closures of Leisure centres and pools. The Conservative Minister promised us at the start that councils should do whatever it takes to get through the pandemic but a year later, the reality is that the government is keeping nearly a third of the money due to Oadby and Wigston.

And this is what has led to the relatively sudden problem in council funding and the stark choice presented to us by officers early this year: bring in car park charging, find an alternative or they would effectively declare the Borough out of money (known as issuing a section 114 notice).

Even then councillors and staff are working on alternatives: there are various proposals to move the council offices, possibly allowing some of a new site to bring in income from office space rental and generate income by other means. But these will take two or more years to happen and the budget problem is happening now.

Finally I and other Lib Dem councillors have suggested more free short stay parking or a resident parking permit for each household but we are told that the sums just don’t add up for these ideas to work.

In contrast Conservatve councillors have backed charging and called it for to be brought in over the years.

So unless additional money can be found very soon, car park charges are likely to happen. I ask all residents concerned about this to write to the Conservative MP here, asking his government to honour the promise to fully fund the costs of Covid and reverse the year on year cuts to local councils.

The Conservatives wasted £37 billion on a track and trace system that doesn’t work and more on dodgy contracts for PPE that often failed to deliver. And yet they can’t find £200,000 owed to Oadby and Wigston that would keep our car parking free.

Please sign the petition calling on the Conservative MP here and his Government to find the “missing millions” so Oadby and Wigston can keep short-stay parking free and safeguard key services.

*revenue budget from council papers