Transcript

Transcript

And declarations of interest. Okay. So we'll move on to agenda item three, 2024-25 parking fees and charges on street and off street for council budget amendment. If I could ask Neil Hoskins to introduce the report, please. Can I just come in? Because I think it's an important... No, I've asked for it to be introduced. Before we go into it, I think it's about the meeting tonight and whether it should actually go ahead. The reason why I say that is because it's been brought to my attention that any of the objectors haven't been written to that tonight's meeting will be going ahead. So none of them would have been known to come here so they could actually present their objections. Which does seem a tad unfair because part of our process says that we would hear objections, but we can't hear objections if no one was informed that tonight's meeting was going ahead. We have written objections and we have objectors here in person, but I don't know if you want to comment, Tim. Chair, through you, there's no legal requirement, I don't believe, to actually notify them of the actual meeting itself. It says we must have due regard to objections. The council's constitution permits us to receive oral representations from an objector, so it's one person. So if more people did turn up, only one person would be allowed to speak, and I believe that Councillor Wake was the first person to actually speak anyway. So even if they were written to, they wouldn't have the right to speak at this meeting in any event. I don't think it would be unlawful for the meeting to proceed. I don't know whether they have actually been written to or not, that's a matter for the highways team, I'm afraid, Chair, so I might have to pass you over to that to see if that has actually been done. Do you know what's coming on that, Neil? Yes, I believe they haven't been written to. Did I hear what, apologies, the acoustics, they haven't been written to? That's my understanding correct. So, Chair, apologies if I can, it does beg the question then, is if they haven't been written to, how can they present their objections? So I think the point that Tim made is that the objections have been received, they need to have the ability to make an objection. If we had x number of people here to make an objection, only one person would be able to speak and we already have one person able to speak. So therefore, I see no reason for the meeting not to go ahead. Chair, the only reason they're here, because I was asked about what can people address, and I said well there should be allowed to be one objector to speak on behalf of all the objectors, which is what our constitution says. So that was only because they receive advice from a member, that's why there's nobody else here today. Surely that cannot be right, because if we're going to have a full process, then those objectors should have been allowed to come to the meeting, see the meeting, because there might be other things that other objectors might want that one person to speak and present on behalf. That would seem wholly inappropriate to carry on in that vein, I have to say. I appreciate what you're saying, Councillor Cox, but I've got an email here from the objector, which was dated the 7th of April, requesting the date and time of the committee for them to come along. So I think that they've been notified well in advance, this has been publicised in advance, it's a public meeting, and the objectors have the opportunity to come here. They are here, and they will be heard, and the meeting will proceed. Councillor Ailin. I believe I'm going to back what Councillor Cox said. It's normally understood that objectors, and also people supporting it, are notified. They'd all come here, and they select a spokesman, because I'm aware we have one objector, they may only have one point, where other people would have different points. And before the meeting, they're told to get together, select a spokesman who will bring all those points up, so we're not finding out from the public what the points are. So as I agree with Councillor Cox, this meeting should be deferred until the people have been notified. And I must agree, nobody might turn up, but we might have 200 people here, and we can't take that risk, this is democracy, we need to be shown we're doing it correctly and fairly to the residents. Thank you Councillor Ailin. Councillor Buck. Thank you Chair, on this point, I would draw your attention to the petition that is currently running live on the Council's website, which currently has 568 signatories to it, objecting to the introduction of the 6-9 parking charges in Zone 1A. Not one of those signatories has been written to, nor the organiser of the petition has been written to, to advise of this meeting. How can 568 people be represented in this Chamber if none of them have been made aware of the date of this meeting or written to? Chair, through you, I believe the petition is still live. If for an objection to be valid to a TRO, it must be submitted in writing within the notice period, so therefore the petition is not necessarily an objection to the TRO. If they wanted it to be, they should have submitted it as a valid written objection, which I don't believe they have done. As regards making points for other people, you have to give due regard to all of the objections that you've got, and you determine what weight you wish to give to those objections when you determine the matter. You can't bring in new objections to things at the meeting, you can only present what objections you've already submitted within the timescale. So, as the Chair has quite rightly pointed out, we have one person who is aware of the meeting, they asked to speak at this meeting, and as such, that is correct. No one else, it doesn't matter how many people would have turned up to try and attend the meeting, they would not be able to speak, they wouldn't be able to take part, they would just be able to observe. So, I believe that the Chairman has made his decision as regards the meeting proceeding. So, we're going to move on to the public speaker now, I'm not going to take any more questions on this or comments, we're going to move to the public speaker. Oh yes, sorry, the introduction to the paper, I thought we'd got to that bit. Thank you, Chair. So, the purpose of this report is to inform the Traffic Regulation Working Party and Cabinet Committee of the responses received during the statutory consultation regarding parking charges as per the budget amendment approved at the February 4 Council. It is recommended that the Cabinet Committee review and consider the comments received during the statutory consultation period set out in Paragraph 11 and Appendix A, agree to implement the traffic regulation orders formalising all the amendments as agreed within the budget amendment submitted and subsequently approved at the full Council meeting held on the 22nd of February 2024, and to agree to the implementation of the operational changes as required and as soon as is appropriate. If agreed to proceed by the 1st of June 2024, then an effective date of the 1st of July 2024 is possible. Thank you. Thank you, Neil. We will now hear from the public speaker, you have three minutes. Hi, my name is Antonia, for those of you that don't know me, and I run Whistler Creek Kitchen, and apparently I am now speaking for the entire seafront, so that's interesting. We've already set out our response, it's number one in Appendix A, which I assume you've all read, but I'll make a few points. Our end of Western Esplanade has been included in the Zone 1A parking charges. On the western end of Western Esplanade, only us to lose and the Cliffs Pavilion are open much past 6pm. As nice a restaurant as we are, it is very hard to justify to our customers a £9 parking fee per visit, as I'm sure you can all imagine. So if this goes ahead, we will simply lose yet more customers to other restaurants around the town, Old Lee Lee Broadway Central High Street, where parking is completely free, as well as of course, pushing visitors to out of town pubs and restaurants. So this damages us, but it also means that the town may not get this extra parking revenue. Have you ever visited Western Esplanade much in the off-season? Of course the parking is very busy, Easter weekend and the sun shining, or August bank holiday weekend. How about on a rainy day in January, or even May? It's dead, mainly because no idiot will pay the parking fees. Indeed, this week is the May half term holidays, and I'd hope that you've all been able to visit us on Western Esplanade ahead of this meeting to look at the parking. If you have, you will have seen that there was a grand total of one car parked all the way from us to Toulouse all day today, and pretty much the same yesterday, where it was actually 20 degrees and sunny. I've got plenty of pictures on my phone if you're interested. We strongly believe the car parking charges are therefore already having a huge detrimental effect. The central seafront might still be busy, but the periphery, where we are, has been incredibly quiet. Instead of hammering visitors, we should be aiming to have a busy, vibrant seafront, especially in the May half term holidays. Instead, we will be one of the most expensive seafronts in the country, as reported by The Sun this week. People used to visit in slightly off weather. Now they simply don't bother, and today has been a perfect example of that, and we'll probably close our doors early. We are now entering our tenth summer in business on Western Esplanade. The winter just gone, we closed all day Tuesday and Wednesday lunchtimes for the first year ever. We are basically into June, and we have still not opened for Tuesday lunchtimes. We've also had to cut our branch service completely, as the seafront has been so quiet during the weekdays. We are also considering closing early on a Sunday, and if these charges go ahead, we will almost certainly have to do so. With the extra parking costs, it looks like we'll have no choice but to cut our opening hours even further next winter. This will lead directly to even further job losses. We do not believe we are the only seafront business currently in this position. Indeed, if you look around, half the arches are either closed entirely, or they're up for sale, as is to lose. We hear the argument that visitors must contribute to the cost of road repairs, yet the only actual study into this by Edinburgh University in 2022 concluded, and I quote, Any extra wear on roads is overwhelmingly caused by large vehicles, buses, and heavy goods vehicles. Road wear from cars and motorcycles is so low that it is immaterial. So in conclusion, after you've made Southend Seafront a laughingstock to visitors, after you've directly been responsible for job losses- That's your time, I'm afraid. So, Mr Chair, there were no buttons to warn the speaker. You ordinarily have three minutes to- Thank you, Councillor McMahon. Councillor Ron Woodley. I'm afraid- Councillor Ron Woodley, please. Just trying to help you. Let the Democrat- Thank you, thank you, Chair, for allowing me to speak, and thank you for the committee. I have a number of questions, hopefully one that you'll be able to answer. The plans for South Church Park East can be confirmed when the charges will be removed, as is in the budget, because, as we all noticed, there is a half marathon coming along Eastern Esplanade on June the 9th, and it will be wise if we have somewhere else to park for residents and visitors, and South Church Park East is a park. Hopefully this administration will recognise it is a park, and therefore have this charge removed completely. Secondly, the Southend Pass, it was agreed that we would extend the pass to include three hours between 6 and 9pm in the evenings. Now, this will enable people who have the pass to park free of charge in the evenings, covering all of the concerns that the previous speaker has mentioned. What would be good if the seafront traders actually advertised the Southend Pass, promoted it vigorously, to enable local people and visitors the opportunity to park free of charge between 6 and 9pm. This will give 15 hours a day, every single day of the year, for 34p a day in terms of a charge. So, I welcome the 6 to 9pm, but what I would say is hopefully the new administration will look to residents parking throughout the seafront, just off the seafront from Shoebury Nest right the way through to Chalkwell and Leon Sea, and to make sure that we cover the parking hours to cover 9 o'clock in the evening, to make sure that the residents are not totally have too many people parking in those streets, because they will not be parking along the seafront. The single yellow line permit, again, I would like to know when that will be introduced, because I think that would be a good bonus for the residents of the city, that they can park on their street in a single yellow line without fear of getting a parking ticket, to enable visitors to come to them, park on their drive if they've got one, and they can park on the street, which will help local people. After all, the single yellow line was there to stop tradespeople, stop tradespeople, commuters from parking all day long, whereas of course it penalises residents. And can I please also ask that the new administration have no plans to introduce the charging on Eastern Esplanade as the previous administration was planning to do. That's about it, Chair, and thank you very much for allowing me to speak.

Thank you, Councillor Woodley. Councillor Terry. Thank you, Leader. I was just to point out, there's been, we've discussed the legalities of having one speaker, which is within our constitution, we've had one speaker on the seafront parking. But to point out to some people saying that other people could have come. Of course, this meeting is publicised live on our webcast, which some people seem to have conveniently overlooked that anyone who is interested in the affairs of this committee, anywhere in the town, including the 500 signatories to the petition, which arguably doesn't have any weight here anyway. But they can watch the full proceedings on the webcast. So that is about the openness and transparency of this decision making process. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Terry. Before I open it up to questions from the floor, I just want to respond to the comments that have been made so far. I do hear what the objector has said, which is why if you look at the joint administration agreement, which has been published transparently on the council website, you will see we are committed to doing a full review of the zones across the city, which will hopefully ameliorate some of the issues that you were talking about, which we do recognise. We are unable to resolve here tonight. To Councillor Woodley, South Church Park East charges will be removed. I will need to speak with our officers to work out how quickly we can do that, but we will get that done as soon as possible. I agree the South End Pass does need to be promoted better by the council, but also by our stakeholders and partners across the city. And you are correct to point out that it does give free parking on the seafront after 6 PM to those who take up the pass, as well as all the parking in the other zones throughout the day. And we are working as part of our joint administration agreement to extend what the pass can do and what it offers to residents. So we will keep looking at that. Also in that joint administration agreement is a commitment to look at parking throughout the seafront for residents and to make sure that they are protected. That is clearly there as well. The single yellow line permit is something that we need to sit down with the director of highways and other offices and work out how that can be done and what is the best way, but we are still committed to that. And with regards to charging on Eastern Esplanade, there is absolutely no plans for this administration to do that, and we will scrap the appalling idea of the previous administration to introduce that. On that, I will now open up to questions from the floor. And the first question I have is Councillor Nadine, please. Thank you, Chair. I can see and understand that these implementations were the part of the previous budget. Can you please tell us what would be the ensuing impact if we choose not to proceed with this traffic regulation? Thank you, Councillor Nadine. That's a really good question. If you look at the budget which was passed by full council in February, it included £520,000 worth of income from the introduction of this new charging regime which should have come in on the 1st of April. So we are already behind on the income predictions that were modelled, so we already have a shortfall to make up. If we were to not proceed with the recommendations in the report tonight, we would have to find that budget somewhere else, and that would mean cutting services somewhere else, and that's not something that we would like to contemplate. But thank you for your question. Councillor McMahon. Good evening, portfolio holder. I feel quite sorry for you this evening being sat in the chair to start meeting with the judicial challenge, which seems to have some validity, having sat, of course, in the chair where you sit for quite some time. Also, not to know the protocol regarding letting people know when their speech time commences and ends. However, I'm sure in due course you'll grow into the role. I'm very glad that you actually mentioned in your last comment to the councillor that you want to protect the parking for residents. Could you then please tell me exactly how much, because I'm sure you've got the fingers, the figures at your fingertips, how much the signage will cost when you actually cancel the 6pm parking, because of course you've got to protect by your own sharing all of the residents who currently have signage and residents' parking schemes. That finishes 6pm. So my first question is, how much is that going to cost, please? Thank you. Thank you for your question. It's actually a completely unrelated matter. Residents' parking zones are managed and enforced in a different way from an off-street parking. There is budget within the capital program which has been set aside of roughly £18,000 to £90,000. I believe it even went up to £100,000 at one point last year to change over signage. So there is capital budget to do that. So that would be covered. And in terms of resident parking zones, of one of which we're talking about seafront parking, resident parking zones. I know you live in one, so perhaps you might want to declare an interest whilst we're talking about doing things in the proper manner. I'll give you the opportunity to declare that interest if you'd like. I'll let you continue. Okay. So to respond to your question, they're unrelated matters and we don't have to consider funding for signage in resident parking schemes at this particular point. That's not the item on the agenda but thank you for your question. Councillor Haynes. Thank you. No, I've got a second question. I'll come back to you. Thank you. It's to pick up a point in your response to me because it isn't unrelated because you prefaced this by saying that it was in the interest of residents. Secondly, if you've now differentiated that that question wasn't valid, then there is no need for me to declare an interest by your own sharing. Thank you. Okay, I'll take that as your comment, as it was on the question. Councillor Allen. I have a number of questions, Mr. Chair. Is it all right if I ask them all at the same time? You may. Right, reference to 4.3, the increase in charging on Zone 1A, which is from 6 to 9 o'clock. Now, as our public person said, people aren't going to spend an extra £9 to go to restaurants in that area. They'd go to Lee and other places which would, first of all, cause unfair competition within South End and our restaurants, and also cause huge parking problems in those areas. Now, you say there's no charging on Eastern Esplanade. Now, how is that fair that you get charged on Western Esplanade, but you can all go down to Eastern Esplanade and park for free? This absolutely is going to be either blanket or not at all. Now, because again, you're causing unfair competition for the businesses down there against the businesses on the Western Esplanade. I'll now jump to 4.5, the education permit introduction. This is for teachers and that to have permits to park. What about firemen, ambulance men, doctors, all those people, where would they stop? Those people took those jobs well aware that they- Are we approaching a question, Councillor Ailin? This is core questions. They're comments so far. Yeah, not really, no, they're not. Okay, I'll go back to 4.3. I believe that the extra charging should be withdrawn. For those reasons I gave, unfair competition. And going back to 4.3, what you've got to remember, if people come to the seafront, they have to stop and buy fuel somewhere. They stop and buy drinks somewhere, which all adds to the economy of Southend. And on dull days today, people aren't going to pay the extra money. Also going back to 4.3, a lot of our residents are elderly and they like walking along the seafront because it's flat. Now you can say that there is the parking, whatever it's called, it costs you 34 pence a day. How many of those people have got a phone or a computer that they can access that and actually log on to it? And how many of them will pay the whole total charge when they're only using it a few days during the summer? And we rely on these people because they stop and buy an ice cream. And again, it adds to the economy. I'll go on to 4.5. I said about the education permit. That shouldn't be allowed. These people take the jobs in these schools. They're well aware of the parking, exactly the same as if I took a job somewhere before you went. You look how much it costs to get there. Do you need a bus or do you need a car? Can you park? So why that's been brought in and it's losing us money. And going on to 4.6, the trade person's permits. Well, if I'm a tradesman, there's no way I'm going to buy a permit because I just park on W lines, wait until a traffic warden comes along, give them some doughnuts and get away with it because I've seen it happen time and time again. And also, you just claim you're unloading under health and safety and you're allowed to stay there. So that trade permit is a nonsense. And I believe last year, only two people took it up. So how are we going to predict to make any money out of it? So I think that should be scrapped as well. We go on to the parks and open spaces position. That's already been raised and I believe you're going to take away as soon as possible in South Church Park East, which I hope you do, which would aid a lot of the parking problem and aid it across parks. Because I am concerned that it's in South End East, it would be in Belfast next, it would be in Chalkwood Park next. Councillor Ailand, I think we've all been very patient in listening to a lot of comments. You still haven't asked a question. Okay, the question is, can you assure us that it will be removed as soon as possible? Especially as Councillor Woodley said, we have major events on the sea front. That assurance has already been given. Right, okay. I'll go on to 5.3. Alternative option if we abandon this for raising money. I don't know whether you're aware, every single council owned lock-up garage, the residents using them, I believe, are being asked to leave and kicked out. The council has a policy that they are not fit for modern vehicles. These lock-up garages are used by all sorts of sized vehicles. We're losing a huge amount of revenue which we could rent these garages out that people want to rent them. And it's up to them if they're car fixed or not. And that revenue is constant. Doesn't matter what the weather is. And it will come in and I believe it will cover the difference or the loss of the potential money that we'll get for increasing from six to nine. So that's my proposal to raise the money to offset the six to nine parking. And I'll put that as a question that the renting of the garages needs to be thoroughly investigated because it's throwing money away. It's a stupid solution. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Ellington. Councillor Sam Allen. Thank you very much, Chair. Councillor Ellington will first welcome the fact that I actually support you on the parking permit for schools or teachers. You spoke that it should be scrapped. My question would be looking at and maybe, Chair, I'm jumping the gun here in the sense that the consultation at 11.2 refers to introduce an additional permit. And clearly shows that there were three, four and none against. That is not my own experience since I've been elected Councillor. There has been so many issues around this, Chair, that I think a lot of residents, myself and Councillor, have actually met with residents who are really up on hand in the particular section of my ward. And if this can be scrapped or dealt with, it will be a welcome development. I know, Chair, you made reference to possibly there's going to be a review and we'll welcome that review. And obviously we'll be able to provide more evidence from residents in terms of what they said to us. So we'll work down to review to include scrapping of the permit so that we can restore our money into that particular section of Milton Ward, which is creating a lot of discomfort, disagreement. At the moment, we want to restore peace to that particular section of the ward. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Councillor Allen. In response to your question regarding the objections or lack of objections received for the educational permit, I think I'd have to refer to the same answer that was given earlier that people had the opportunity to put in an official objection to this committee. I appreciate there is a strength of feeling within the community and they have made that clear to their ward councillors. They haven't done it through here. What I will say on the educational permit is that the educational permit was not introduced via this committee. It was introduced by the previous portfolio holder. There is a scheme, a trial scheme, which is going on until the end of July. And at the end of July, once the scheme is finished, we will take a view. But my view at the moment is that we will not be proceeding with this into the new school term. Thank you. Councillor Hyde. Thanks, Chair. I've got a question around how much we've looked at other councils. So I've had a quick look. The claim that we are the most or even approaching the most expensive seaside is obviously not true. Nor is the chargeable hours. Great Yarmouth charging till nine o'clock is £3 per hour for the first two hours and £3.80 per hour thereafter. Bournemouth is £3.10 per hour in its 24 hour parking. And Brighton is £6 per hour at the weekends or £40 for the day. And that's a 24 hour parking. So given that most of the seaside resorts with significant visitors such as ourselves extend for 24 hour parking and they're charging higher. Is there any evidence that's been gained from those councils that they've seen any drop in use of their car parks? I've got a second question, should I ask it? Yeah. My second question is that I do know that some areas regionally where there is offered free parking such as in Buzzardon and in Lakeside, although they're not seasides. In those instances the businesses have actually paid basically double business rates in order to pay for parking for their visitors. If seafront businesses wished to reduce the impact of the parking fees on their customers and they approach the council to pay for the hours or pay for the parking space. Would that be something that we would consider? Thank you. Thank you for your questions Councillor Hyde. With regards to what other seaside resorts charge, it's not an item in the reports I won't ask officers to comment on what analysis has been done. But I think we've all got Google and we can all see, as you've just pointed out, that there are a number of seaside resorts that charge far in excess of what Southend charges. So I reject the notion that we are currently or set to become the most expensive because that's clearly not borne out in evidence. With regards to businesses wanting to purchase spaces from the council that they can give out to their customers, the council already has a scheme where people can purchase car parking spaces. So I'm certain it's something that could be looked at but it's not something that we've considered as part of this paper. Thank you. Councillor Buck please. Yes, thank you. I have a number of questions so I'll get through them as quickly as I can. The first one is, can you advise chair why Councillor McMahon was asked to make a declaration of interest when Councillor Terry, who lives in the area of Easton, was not asked to make a disqualifying interest when he made his comments? Councillor Terry is not a member of this committee, he's a guest. He still spoke. And if he wants to make that declaration, he is able to make that declaration. The opportunity to make declarations of interest was made as the second item on the agenda. Nobody raised their hand. If somebody wants to raise their hand now to make a declaration of interest, they are more than welcome to do so. Easton-Esmeralda was not on the agenda of the paper and also declarations of interest can be made at any point during the proceedings of the meeting. Thank you Councillor Buck. Councillor Terry, you've got your hand up. Oh, sorry, it is now. So, yes, if it satisfies Councillor Buck, I will make a declaration on something that didn't need to be declared upon because as he rightfully already said with an own goal statement that we weren't discussing the area in which is of interest to me. I was simply trying to offer assistance that the discussion about the fact that 500 people have created a petition and that all of those people can access the Council webcast, that's what I was saying, was an assistance to transparency and democracy. Thank you. Okay, so just to clarify, are you declaring an interest that you live on Easton-Esmeralda? I am, yes. Thank you. Councillor Buck, you have more questions? I do, thank you. One of your responses to a fellow Councillor, you've alluded to the fact that you are not committed to maintaining the educational permit and that you don't intend to continue with the scheme. Is that the case? Yes, that is the case. I believe it is a punitive scheme which unfairly advantages one employer over many others in the area and I do not believe that a fair case has been made. The teachers at that school have the ability to pay for a named car park pass at Shorefield or at North Road and walk to the school or to cycle to the school. There are many, many transport options that other businesses do not have the ability to benefit from discount rate parking that you have offered them. I would just say these are not businesses. These are state educational facilities. They are part of the public sector, but if that's how you view your public sector colleagues, then clearly that's your prerogative. I would also just point out that Councillor Hyde is incorrect in her calculations for the parking, as you quite rightly mentioned. We've got Google. I've got Google in front of me. Bath Road parking in Bournemouth, all day parking, is £24.20. South End will be £25, so that still puts South End above Bournemouth. That's not on the seafront, Councillor Buck, but please continue. That's the most expensive parking. Thank you. So I come on to my questions, other questions relevant to the paper. 4.1, can you elaborate and provide a bit more detail exactly what effectively managed curbside space and demand actually means, given that it states its primary objective is to support wider transport policies. Is this to make parking too expensive to prevent many from coming by car? Thank you for your question, Councillor Buck. Before I ask our officers to respond to that question, I will point out that this paper was written when you were Portfolio Holder and it was signed off within hours of me becoming leader of the Council, so I've had very little input into this. So I assume you know the answer, but I will allow our officers to respond. Apologies, I think we'll probably have to provide a written response to that. I'll make some investigations. Thank you, Neil. Councillor Buck. Okay, thank you for that. No, it's not a paper I'm familiar with, because it's not one that I'd ever had sight of, because it wasn't written and presented to me to scrutinise. So you had the opportunity to change the paper, should you wish, when you took over the administration. The responses provided by the consultations actually raise more questions than they answer. Given that all except two responses indicate zero response and zero preference either way, can we seriously expect this to be a valid consultation? The consultation was available, like every other consultation, for people to engage with. I think we all recognise that consultations within the Council have always had a poor level of response. And that's something that, as members, we all need to try to improve by engaging with our residents and getting them to get in touch. The consultation is the consultation. It was advertised legally, responses were received legally, and if people chose not to respond or chose not to engage, it is what it is. Can you advise how all residents were advised that the consultation was live? The consultation would have been advertised the same way every other consultation. I'd have to defer to the former portfolio holder for how this consultation was advertised, because it was done under him. You've indicated that you're fully committed to reviewing the hugely damaging six to nine parking charges, which you said so a few moments ago. When will this take place and when will it be concluded? We said that we would review the six to nine parking charges. I think you misheard, we said we would review resident parking zones and we would review all zones, as in should Oyster Creek be in zone 1A. That's the sort of thing I said we would be reviewing. I didn't say we'd be reviewing six to nine. However, what I can say is that should this be agreed, we will very urgently look at what possibly can be done, if at all, to reduce the fee or to provide more free parking spaces across the city. Thank you. So you've indicated that you'll scrap the proposed parking charges along eastern Esplanade, the charges that you approved in your budget amendments and by the way we voted against. Can you advise how much parking revenue loss you allocated in your amended budget to allow for them being removed from the budget? There wasn't a breakdown in the budget of how much would actually be achieved on this, so I'd have to give you a written answer to that, Councillor Buck. Thank you. We requested some data on parking charges, which we've been provided with, on parking income. April shows a huge uptake in actual revenue for the Southend Pass. I'm quite confident that this is due to all the publicity about the reintroduction of the hugely damaging six to nine parking charges along the seafront. Given that anyone who buys the pass is only going to do so because it obviously saves them money against what they currently pay for parking and given that the pass costs £125 a year and your current income forecast run rate for the year is 70% above budget, do you really believe this is achievable or is it more fantasy figures? Thank you, Councillor Buck. The projected parking income revenue spreadsheet that you're referring to shows that the Southend Pass actually achieved £62,000 more in April than was budgeted. So on that basis, I think that we will see an increase in revenue from the Southend Pass. Residents will continue to benefit from the reduced parking and when we actually start to put a little bit of elbow grease behind promoting the pass, we will see those figures increase even more. I am confident that we will continue to see a great return on investment on the Southend Pass and continue to offer fantastic value to our residents. Thank you for your question. Thank you. So another question in relation to the pass then, given the significant increase and mindful of my previous comments that you would only buy the pass, which again is great if you want to, but you would only buy if it saves you money against your current parking costs, can you advise what the amount is and where you've allocated the loss of income in general parking income for the increased uptake in the Southend Pass? So the budget, as was set out earlier in the year, does not give a detailed breakdown, as you well know, of exactly where parking charges are coming from. I can get that breakdown to you in a written answer. However, the Southend Pass is considered to be good value for residents. It does save the residents money. I'm surprised that you are against that. But as the previous portfolio holder, if you felt that the Southend Pass led to a reduction in parking income, you should have scrapped it and you did not. So therefore, you are on record as saying that you see the benefit of it and you want to keep it. So on that basis, I agree with you, Councillor Buck. It is a good deal for residents and we will continue to promote it. It is. It is a good deal for residents. But as you amended the budget and you skewed all the figures for parking, so it becomes now your budget, not our budget, because the figures were different when the budget was done, I am supportive of the parking pass. It is great value for money for residents because it saves them money on their current parking costs. So where have you allocated the loss of parking income for the uptake in the parking pass? We don't believe there will be a significant decrease in parking income. Okay, so you've allocated for increased revenue but no loss. Okay, may I point out, Councillor Buck, that your budget, your parking figure, your parking figures, apart from what was added on, did not factor in any decrease in parking revenue. In fact, you increased parking revenue by over two and a half million pounds with absolutely no evidence whatsoever. And we're already seeing that your budget, 99% of your budget, the variance to that is already performing poorly against parking revenue. So I think perhaps we should move on to your next question. We are not playing out our budget, we're playing out your budget, we voted against the budget, thank you. So we've heard that you're going to put in the hugely damaging six to nine parking charges, I think that's a given for this administration. So can you clarify that if you've already used your south end pass for one period of three hours in zone 1A earlier in the day, you can use it for a second period between six to nine in the evening? Correct. Okay, thank you. I don't have any further questions but I will come back for comments, thank you. Thank you. Councillor Moyes. Thank you, Leader. We obviously made changes to the budget to make it a labor budget. It changed obviously, this is a financial impact on the budget, the change in the parking charges. When you put that budget together, when did you foresee the financial impact of the changes you've made starting to hit the budget? Thank you for your question, Councillor Moyes. Firstly, the budget in terms of value was changed by 1% based on the budget that you had put forward or your previous administration had put forward. All budgets start on the 1st of April, so on the 1st of April is when we foresaw the charges coming in and the revenue coming in from that point. However, that is clearly not the case but what is also not the case is the number of elements of the rest of the 99% of the conservative budget which was impossible to deliver from April 1st such as all the staffing changes, etc. As you well know, as an experienced Councillor, budget setting is a range of predictions that we think will happen based on best information and throughout the year we will have to manage it to a net zero budget position. So we will have to make decisions throughout the year to claw back any loss of income from parking but also any additional income that was spent from other budget items that were not able to be delivered from the 1st of April because consultations were not completed, etc. So when you set that budget you knew that the changes couldn't be made by the 1st of April? No, that's not correct. So were you planning not to have a public consultation? There was time for a consultation. It should have happened straight away and if it had happened straight away it could have come in from the 1st of April, possibly even the 2nd week of April where the differences would have been negligible. However, that did not happen and the consultation did not start until much later. When did the consultation end? Yeah, I know that. 11th of April. So the consultation ended 10 days after the budget that you put together so that immediately you had an unbalanced budget. Putting aside any budget amendments, the budget was unbalanced from the beginning. The budget, if we had not amended it, still would have been unbalanced because the vast majority of savings that you put forward were not achievable from the 1st of April. But we have not had our first financial output report but once we do I will be able to respond to that question in more detail, Councillor Moyes. Obviously the previous budget we can't really talk about because it was defeated and your budgets are in place, but your budget was put in place knowing it was going to be unbalanced from the start because this meeting had to take place as well. So had you taken into account when you were putting your budget together and did you realise that public consultation plus this meeting having to take place, there were now in the 30th of May so we're two months down the line, but in your budget you've not recognised that at all, is that correct? Actually that's incorrect. If you look at the budget amendment which was put forward it demonstrated that the six to nine parking charges based on the numbers of our officers were providing could actually achieve a higher figure than what we put forward. So we did factor in a lower level of income than we believe can be achieved. However I think the important point to note here is that the previous administration of which you were a part up until shortly after the budget, so you may not have been aware, the cabinet could have put this out to consultation much sooner and this could have been in place in time and it was not. Okay. Who advised you on the finances around the parking to say that the changes you've made would be a balanced budget? Well I think that's a matter of public record, Councillor Moyes, who is the section 151 officer, as every budget amendment would have to be signed off by the section 151 officer. Okay, so we are projecting at the end of three months a £454,000 black hole. Do you believe that the budget is still in balance? As I said budgets need to be delivered balanced by the end of the year. Once we have our first financial out turn report and we've had that briefing from officers on where the budget is at the moment, what it looks like and what decisions we will need to make to get it back in line, we will do that but at the moment it would be not only inappropriate but impossible to comment on where we are or where we should be. Less than ten days into a new administration. As you know, last year we made a bit of a precedent of making fast decisions. The council, as you know, here we go, is in a mess and the finances we could basically go under. We've been told our corporate risk register says that. We make decisions during the year. Are you going to make decisions during the year? Should you just get the pain out of the way and make the U-turn now? Or when will you make the U-turn? Are you going to just wait 12 months before making what you seem to think are changes that are required? Sorry, what is your question? Basically, you've already indicated that you want to make U-turns on some of this stuff and you want to change the way we park. Last year we made changes in here, not waiting until budget but actually making them as soon as we knew something was wrong, we made the decision. So are you going to make the U-turn now? Are you going to have residents having the pain for a year before you do what you seem to think changes are required? Are you going to do them sooner rather than later? Thank you for your question, Councillor Moyes. I don't believe any U-turns are necessary. There are a number of items which were introduced by the formula portfolio holder which we do not agree with, which we will look to remove at the earliest opportunity and when it is financially prudent to do so. If we need to make decisions in-year to readjust the finances, we will make those decisions. Thank you. Any more questions? No, thank you. Councillor McMullan. Thank you, Chair. I've got two questions on two separate issues if I may. I'll take the first one is around the educational permits. Pleased to hear that you're going to review that and potentially scrap them. For clarity at the moment, one thing that should be noted is that the school in question actually did have a car park and not too many years ago decided to build on it to accommodate extra classrooms. Now what I'd like to know is we have educational permits, how many have been issued, who have they been issued to, i.e. is it just teaching staff, is it learning support assistance, is it lunchtime people, is it office staff, who qualifies, who gets it? And also, these have been issued in an area where we had considerable parking stress and that a resident's parking scheme was introduced not too long ago. So has the effect of introducing these educational permits then been detrimental to the resident's parking area and are we back to square one where residents can't park in the zone? Thank you. Thank you, Councillor McMullan. I believe there are 60 permits which have been issued across three locations, local roads and two car parks. I cannot give you the official breakdown of who they have gone to but my understanding is it's a mix of staff but I can provide you a written answer on that if we have those details. It's a trial scheme and the trial is going to run until the end of the term at which point we'll have to take a view about the next term. My feeling at the moment is that it's an unnecessary scheme. We do have the ability for named car parks and I would encourage all employers of all types, whether they are public or private sector, retail or educational, if you have staff who want to be parking close to where they work and where they work is near or in a resident permit zone, they should be looking to utilise a named car park within walking distance. Thank you for that. I was interested by Councillor Buck's comment because I have friends who live in the area who tell me that they can't park within three roads of where they live so maybe he's just lucky on the days he goes there. Second question that I'd like to ask is around the previous administration's plans to remove six to nine charges and one of the ways that this was to be paid for was by the introduction of 448 extra parking spaces along the seafront, Seaway and some of the roads around and there's quite a breakdown here with estimated incomes and it was the 30th of June I think or 29th of June that the meeting took place and I remember it well. Could somebody tell me how many of those spaces have actually been introduced and if not all 448, why not? Thank you. Thank you, Councillor McMillan. I will defer to officers. I believe it's sub 50 spaces but if we want an accurate number we may have to provide a written response but I'll see if the officers know it offhand. The current total is 47. Thank you, thank you. So I said sub 50 so approximately 12% it seems. Any further questions? No, thank you. Councillor Aylin. Thank you, Mr Chairman. I've noted that you have given comprehensive answers, not probably what people wanted to hear, to every other Councillor but I cannot remember you answering any of mine. That's probably because you didn't answer any questions, Councillor Aylin. You made some rather long speeches. I tabled five questions. They weren't speeches and I asked questions. Would you like me to ask them again? If you would like, Councillor Aylin, I'm more than happy to review the recording of the webcast after to see if there were any questions. I listened to you quite intently for a long period of time and there were no actual questions. There were lots of comments but if there are specific questions that you would like to reel off now as questions without leading, I will afford you the opportunity to do so. Thank you. Right, I'll go back to 4.3 and I first of all said about the issues about older people coming down to the seafront. I also said about the unfair competition that it's generating and the fact that this extra charge will affect the Christophillian theatres, arts and everything else and also the seafront and why is it only on Western Esplanade. So that to me is a question. Why is it only on the Western Esplanade and why are we bringing it in which is going to bring in unfair competition? I believe that was the question. I'll have a look on the webcast when I get home. Okay, thank you Councillor Aylin. That's the first question. Okay, we'll come back to others. If you look at 3.11 it says that to extend the operational and chargeable period for zone 1A which is the entire zone 1A which covers the point you are asking, that's why Western Esplanade. But as I said earlier we are looking at a longer term review of our zones but it also says except for Shorefield Road Car Park and Cliffs Pavilion Car Park so your comment that it will affect the theatre is misplaced. Would you like to ask the next question? Can I ask a further question on that? You said Shorefield Car Park and Cliffs Pavilion Car Park but we put steps in so a number of people because quite often those when there's shows on the Cliffs Pavilion and because there's permit parking round there they have to park on the seafront which would be £9 if they go and watch a show. So would you say that this is unfair and detrimental to the Cliffs Pavilion and will reduce the arts that are going on there and also if people are going to the restaurants within zone A they've got to pay an extra £9 if it's in the evening and that is causing unfair competition because people will go to leave. You can't expect these restaurants who are employing staff and running businesses to even substitute that £9. It makes a big difference so I'm asking the question would you agree this is unfair competition and allowing other places to prosper? Thank you for your question Councillor Ellington. I think it makes a lot of broad assumptions so firstly there are two free car parks at the Cliffs Pavilion providing plenty of spaces if people don't get there early for the show or the meal and they may have to park on the seafront yes there will be a charge but there is a free car park, two free car parks that they can use. In addition to that if they would like to take up the fantastic offer of the South End Pass then they still wouldn't have to pay that charge so I'd disagree that it's a £9 charge because they could take up the offer of the South End Pass. And as for competition I think it's important to note that these claims that all the people who would eat in zone 1A are going to go somewhere else or if they go to Thought Broadway or they go to Leigh if they all won't go there they'll all find there's no parking spaces so they'll drive back and they'll eat where they plan to eat in the first place. Can I come back to you on the Cliffs Pavilion issue? You book online quite often at Cliffs Pavilion why can't there be a ticket provided that if you have to park on the seafront providing you are providing free parking spaces for the Cliffs Pavilion they can show something in their windscreen to show they're going to the Cliffs Pavilion and won't then be charged. So I think that would be a sensible way of keeping that going and as you mentioned the South End Pass a lot of our residents go down the seafront because it's flat and you can walk on it easy to park and they have to park near to it so they can walk along, haven't got the equipment to get onto the South End Pass. They haven't got the mobile phones they're not online. Thank you Councillor Haynes to answer both of those questions you can get a paper South End Pass so no one is digitally excluded. The second point to note is many of my residents and if you look at the demographics of my ward you will see that we have above the average for elderly people many of them are proud users of the South End Pass they go down the seafront and the fact that the South End Pass allows them to go down there for three hours every day means that they're spending money in shops and restaurants and bars that they normally wouldn't. So, you know, it is a way of getting more people down there. That I would say is an assumption, I take what you're saying. My second question was about 4.5 we know the answer to that already. The trades person permits, two were taken up last year. I can't see, as I said, that tradesmen just park on WL lines they then claim when the traffic wardens come along and I've seen it the traffic wardens just go down. The traffic wardens just go straight past them continuously just in my ward I see it all the time and so there's no incentive at all to buy a tradesmen permit and we were told at the budget meeting, oh there will be so many people there's so many vans in South End. So can you see this actually working? Do you think, the second part of it, do you think we'll sell more than two this year? I do believe we'll sell more than two and I also believe that it is a better offer than what was there previously. If you look at the paper you'll see it's removing two trades person permits. We used to have one just for on street, one for on and off street. I think it was a little bit convoluted and confused. We've simplified it, made it a lot cheaper but we've also made the hours very clear, 8 in the morning until 6pm Monday to Saturday which are typically the hours that trades people would work. But this isn't just about on and off street parking. Where this is fundamentally different from the previous offer is it allows people to park in resident permit zones without them having to ask for visitor passes. So it allows trades people to move all around the city at any point to go from job to job to job and not waste time asking for a permit or walking 10 minutes round the corner because they can't park anywhere back and forth to their van. It saves them time and allows them to get on with the job. So if I work at the hospital between 8 and 6 o'clock I can buy a trades person permit and park my car? That is a fixed point of work so he couldn't use it to park outside his shop but if he's out and about on call he could use it in resident permit zones. Sorry to use you, Councillor Wakefield. Therefore all I have to do is register the business, £161, I can then claim that I move around, I get a tradesman's pass and I'll park outside the hospital and other places. This is where there's a loophole here that needs to be sorted or some clarification. Do you agree? I take your point on board and we can take it up with our officers. I believe Councillor Wakefield wanted to come in on that point. Thank you. I had been waiting to declare an interest and it was Mr Portfolio Holder that originally you said that there wasn't any inclusion in the paper regarding residents parking. However you've just alluded to that which was a little bit confusing for me because it was in contradiction to what you originally said. In which case I would like to declare an interest because I live in an area that has residents parking. Thank you Mr Portfolio Holder. Thank you Councillor McMahon if you can ensure you fill out the relevant form and hand it to the Democratic Services Officer. I think Councillor Wakefield wanted to come in on your point. That's all right Steve. You can control the room all night long and just keep your mic on. That's fine. As for the actual traders pass, it's obviously Ron Woodley and myself that wanted to bring in the traders pass and the reason why that is because myself and I do believe plumbers and builders and everything else are suffering from the same problem. They go to parking obviously a CPZ, a controlled parking zone and they're forever looking over their shoulder to see whether they're going to get a parking fine or not and they could be working away obviously in a cupboard, fit in a boiler, not actually keeping looking at their van and it makes their days work really quite hard to go about their business. And a lot of the places that they go to, there are no residents in the building to get a ticket to put on your van. So you're constantly being hounded about I can't park here, I can't park there, I'm going to come to your job but if I get a fine I'm going to charge you the fine. So it wasn't really advantageous for the businessmen in the town, all of them, not just myself being I'm the businessman in the town as a decoration, the whole idea is to help the businesses in the town to bring the tradesmen pass. The reason why there was a massive take up on it because obviously to park on off street it was 600 and to park in car parks it was 1200 so therefore if you wanted to park between both of them it was a colossal amount of money. That's why there was a massive take up on it. We obviously when trying to bring in wanted to be one fee for both. And this is what's being sorted out. So it's one fee for everything, simple, obviously cheap, effective, and it is better for a tradesperson to take it up. Thank you. Please continue. Totally agree with that and I hope you will be taking exactly what Councillor Wakefield put forward. Well we worked on it quite extensively before the budget so I think we're on top of that, thank you. Could you give some indication of how much it would be? Or would you want to wait until you're going to actually release that? The budget amendment predicted £60,000 worth of use which was £100 being sold. Thank you. And the last thing I came to was 5.3 where I stated you're saying about if we decide to reject this 6-9 parking fee where will we get extra money from? And I pointed out that although it's not on this paperwork you asked where you get extra money from. Well, Southend Council, I found out at development control, now have a policy of not renting out a single lock-up garage and in fact I believe, and this is being checked, forcing people out of them, which is going to add to street congestion, because modern cars do not fit. But the issue is here that they're used for what sort of modern cars. If you take a garage up you know what size it is. That is an income that is constant. So what's your question Councillor? Well the question is, that is an income that is constant, not varying like the C Fund on weather and events, is this being looked at to reverse this rule so that garages can be rented out? Because there's a big demand for them. To begin in that financial which could be used to offset the 6-9 charge if we don't have it. Thank you Councillor Ellington. To respond to your question outside of this meeting I will take advice from officers, converse with cabinet colleagues to see if there is any rental value in the garages that you pointed out. Councillor Satsa please. Sorry I was just going back to the education permits. I know that residents didn't actually engage with the democratic process and lodge complaints, but I just wanted to say that the introduction has impacted residents around the school very badly. And it has set the teachers and the headteacher against the residents. We were trying to make some kind of compromise which was kind of overridden. And the ward councillors were not consulted, there was not a process. I know it was a trial, but the residents weren't informed of the trial going forward. So I hope going forward if there are any trials we will follow the due process. Thank you. Sorry it was a question, but what I wanted to ask is why were other schools not consulted about education permits because there are two other schools in the area. That's what I would like to ask the portfolio holder. Thank you Councillor Satsa. I don't have an answer to that as it was something I have inherited, but I will go away and find out the answer for you and provide you and the committee with a written response. I have four more people with questions. Councillor Cox, Wakefield, Allen and Hyde are there any further questions? Because I'm going to draw a line under it there. OK, Councillor Cox please. Thank you, Chair. First of all before we go into, can I just ask, the officers may well know, when was this paper written? I'm afraid I'm going to have to provide a written answer to that because I've not been around for the last few weeks so I'm not aware. We'll have to find out for you. Thank you, I appreciate that. But I think it's fair to say if there was a paper that was written prior to the elections that Councillor Buck wasn't made aware of it. Again, I would just need to find out the exact timeline of this paper to answer the question fully. Just in terms then of the paper, can I ask then that the, as the paper is written, includes the recommendation to carry on with the charging along the part of Eastern S Blade that's not currently charged for, is that correct? Neil, if you don't mind. Sorry, could you repeat the question I was being spoken to? So, the reason why I asked the question is the Chair said that the charges along Eastern S Blade will not be going forward. Can I ask then as part of what's being decided here as part of the recommendations, the recommendation is to approve the parking charges being implemented on the part of Eastern S Blade that's not currently charged for, is that correct? Eastern S Blade is not in this paper. Okay. If it's not in the paper, will then a further meeting be called to then discuss that part of the parking charges because we're not determining that part tonight then? I don't want to say that because I believe that it is. Apologies. Tim has just pointed out that it is stated in this paper. I would just need to find out some details within a second. Apologies for the delay. It looks like it's in the TRO but not in the paper and therefore we would need to confirm the TRO as per the recommendation in the paper. Okay. So, as they're not currently charged for, a further meeting is then going to have to be reconvened to listen to the objections, is that correct? Okay. Again, apologies for the delay. We'd bring the amendment order or any objections to the amendment order back to this committee so it's only on the amendment order, not on other elements. On the basis of that then, we're going to have, well we've all really had a predetermination out of that meeting, haven't we, because the portfolio holder has just said that they're not going to go ahead. I think we could deal with that amendment order and consider the objections as they arise and I think because there clearly was a discrepancy between the original traffic order and this paper that a predetermination hasn't been made. But, I think we would need to bring the amendment order back and debate, yourselves would need to debate any objections on their relative merits. But the thing is we can't make a decision beforehand, we can only make a decision on the papers that we have and recommendations in front of us, is that correct? I believe that's correct, I would just need to confirm with the officer. Through you, the TRI is quite clear, it does include the extension of the charging area to Eastern Esplanade, the idea is I think for it not to be included within the order, however you can't confirm the order with that amendment, what would need to be done is if this order was to be confirmed, which hasn't been decided as yet, it would have to be confirmed as it is and if you did want to remove that you'd need to do an amendment order to it, therefore removing Eastern Esplanade from this list. And consider any objections or any representations, not just objections, it's representations to that amendment and it would only be that amendment that would be up for debate, not the merits of the whole scheme. And you would need to make a determination based on the information you have at that hand, there may be some information that you see in those representations that may suggest that you continue with Eastern Esplanade. But that would be a matter for that meeting for you to discuss, as I say that's the only way I can see if you did want to proceed with Eastern Esplanade. Thank you, Chair. Just on that point then, when will we be getting a meeting? Because I'm presuming then we're going to have more of a black hole in our budget figures because we'll be projecting income coming in on them spaces. Is that correct? As I responded to Councillor Moyes earlier, if there are decisions that are taken in year that have a budget effect, you would need to find a way to balance that budget throughout the year. As you know full well, when last year you removed six to nine parking charges claiming you would replace that money with new parking spaces and as we heard from the question from Councillor McMullan, you only put in 47 of the 448 spaces that you said that you would put in. So by the end of the year you still achieved a net positive budget position on parking income because we can make predictions on what we're going to get but it really depends on what happens. We've got fantastic events coming to the seafront over the summer so we may well have more parking income than we have projected. We will need to take a longer term view of this and not try and make that decision right here right now in this meeting. So, can I just ask then, this paper here, you say you never saw sight of it, is that correct? We've only just seen sight of it just recently. It was published before I first saw it. So we're saying that a paper was published in your name before you saw sight of it, is that correct? That is correct and that is a matter that has been taken up with the Chief Executive and the senior leadership team and it is an unfortunate error because of tight timelines and it's something that won't happen again. Thank you. So, just to be clear then, you're saying that you're going to make changes on Eastern Esplanade when it finally comes here, that you voted for, is that correct? The budget as amended needed to be taken as amended. We couldn't amend everything we wanted to there and then. We are in the position to make changes in here now, which is our democratic right to do so as the executive, which you did last year and you had every right to do so. And as much as I disliked a lot of the decisions that you made and we are paying the price for some of them now, such as on our grass cutting, you had the right to make them. We now have the right to make them and that is exactly what we will do. So just to be clear then, you voted for the Eastern Esplanade charges and now you're opposing them, is that correct? I voted for a budget in its totality. I didn't support every part of it. The bits which are now within my gift to amend, I will amend. So because they have some budgetary implications, you said that you knew the budget won't balance, is that correct? As I said in my budget speech, and if we're taking up quite a lot of time talking about things which are not on the paper, but in my budget speech, I made it clear that your budget, amended or unamended, did not balance. We have taken administration knowing full well we would inherit a deficit position and that we would have to work throughout the year to fix it. And that is what we will do. We are ten days in and once we have a clear view of where we need to make amendments to fix the budget, we will do that and we will share that information openly and transparently as we have done with every decision we've taken so far. Okay, so to be clear then, you voted for a budget that you knew you wouldn't balance, is that correct? Next question. I've answered your question, you've now asked it three times, it's been answered, I'm not going to answer it again. Do you have another question, Councillor Cox? Yes. Do you realise you have a legal obligation to vote for a balanced budget? Are you aware of that? Yes, I'm aware that every Councillor has an obligation to vote for a balanced budget. If our budget, unamended, if we had not amended the budget, you would have voted for it. And you would have voted for it knowing you could not deliver it because you could not deliver the staffing changes by the 1st of April. It was a physical impossibility. However, if you set a budget knowing that your money in and your money out balances and things change throughout the year, that is perfectly acceptable. If you have any issues with that, I suggest you take it up with a monitoring officer, it's not for this meeting, this is a meeting of Cabinet Committee and Traffic Working Party, it is not a meeting about the budget. Chair, it does actually say in the report that we're reliant upon delivering budget outcomes as part of this, so I think it is a massive part because we've already heard that there's over £450,000 effectively back-holed. Because there was no way, even if the consultation had started the day after Budget for Council, because this meeting would have still needed to happen. And this meeting couldn't have happened during the pre-election period, so when you're looking at the consultation piece, there was no way it could ever be delivered for the 1st of April. That's borne out by the papers if you go too recently. I will make a fair point, Councillor Cox, but I must point out that it was only under pressure that you cancelled this meeting during the pre-election period and you had every intention of your administration rail-loading this through during the middle of an election period. No, the monitoring officer putting rights in this meeting could be held. And I have it in writing that you attempted to have it anyway. So, the matter at hand is the items on the agenda, the recommendation is as set out, the recommendation states that we should proceed with six to nine parking charges. You know there is £520,000 worth of budgeted income on the line. Based on your line of questioning, I assume that you will be supporting it. Do you have another question? Yes. With the £454,000 that we know we can't save, have you got any ways in how you're going to meet up that shortfall? That's a discussion that I will have with the section 151 officer. So there has been no discussions at all at the moment with a near half a million pound black hole. There's been no discussions? I've had discussions with all senior officers, including the section 151 officer. The content of those conversations are between me and the officers. And I'm certain you will have your own briefings as lead with the opposition. Thank you. I have no further questions. Thank you. Thank you. If it's quick, Councillor Ellington, because we have two more people waiting to speak. This is a long term project. So have you stopped getting those extra ones or is that project carrying on so we get nearly 500 parking spaces? That project will need to continue and that is a conversation that I will have with the highways team. Thank you. Councillor Wakefield. Thank you very much, Chair. And as for questions, I've only got really one question and it's a sharp and short question. And then I would like to come back on comments and I've got a lot of comments and a couple of questions on any other business. The only question is obviously we go into parks and open spaces and charging. Can you clarify that big gunners and little gunners will not be charged? Yes. Thank you. Councillor Allen. Thank you very much, Chair. Sorry to take you back to parking permits for schools. Earlier on, one of my colleagues did make eloquent comment about this issue. I'm particularly want to raise the issue about the role of the former portfolio order for this. And that is Councillor Burke. The way this has been handled could have been handled better. The lack of response and pass not consulting and responding to email has in many ways contributed to the attitude and the sort of hostile and in some cases leading to chaos. But I'm particularly glad that the review is going to take place. And I as a world Councillor in that what I would call the eye of the stone in terms of St. Bernard and the local communities in that area, we work very hard to try and put that right. But it should be noted and put on record that Councillor Burke's attitude and his role in this should have been better handled. And I know he understand what I'm saying. I'm not as a newly elected Councillor wants to have a go at an established possibly experienced Councillor. But some of his role here could have been better and could have at least help us to create sort of harmony, the sort of cry that the local communities in that area of the schools cry for. Sorry to interrupt you, Councillor Allen, but just for fairness, I did interrupt Councillor Elling. Do you have a question that you could put, please? Thank you very much, Chair. It's not a question, it's more of a comment. Okay. Would you like to save it for comments and we'll bring you back in? I would appreciate that. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. So, Councillor Allen, I think you had your hand up earlier. Did the clarification cover your point or did you have a further question? Clarification covered my point. Thank you, Councillor Allen. There is a question that just popped into my head. Okay. If you don't mind giving me the tolerance of asking it. The 500 parking spaces that could be generated, regenerated 47, they're going to generate an extra cost. Would you believe or would you assume, sorry, this will probably offset any assumed loss of the 6 to 9 parking. Would you agree or would you say that the 500 parking spaces would just give us some extra money but wouldn't cover the loss of the assumed loss of the 6 to 9 parking if that was not put in? Thank you, Councillor Allen. We would have to take a longer term view on that one on the basis that the parking spaces will require some capital input. They will also need to physically be put in place before they can actually start generating any income. So I think it was always fanciful last summer to claim that one could pay for the other because there was no possible way of getting all those spaces in in time and here we are almost 12 months later and only 47 of those spaces have gone in and certainly haven't generated anywhere near the revenue they were supposed to replace. Okay, so can I ask then, is there a timeline for this? Is there an estimated date that when we'll get, say, for example, when we're up to 200 and when we're up to 500, there must be a plan mapped out, there must be contractors put in place to do all this, so we must be able to know of a timeline. Thank you, Councillor Allen. I'll have to come back to you with a timeline because it's an inherited position and we will need to look at what the plans were, where they're going and do they actually meet the needs of the city in the places that are being input. But we'll take a view of that with officers and we'll come back with a plan. Councillor Wakefield? Yes, thank you very much. Just to clarify on some of these conditions, can the officers tell me what the average yearly income is for a Zone 1A bay? I do believe it was between $5,000 and $6,000 a year, is that correct? We'll provide you a written answer on that, we don't have the figures to hand. Okay, thank you, because then that will clarify obviously the costs of what you would actually get. If it was $6,000, 47 bays is £282,000 extra. If you had another 350 bays, say $6,000, that's $2,100,000 extra money for the year. So we've obviously tried to get this money in, but if it's less, then obviously it's still going to be a fair chunk of money. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Wakefield. I said I'd draw a line under it with the last name on the list, which is Councillor Hyde. Thank you, Chair. Firstly, a point of clarification. When I made my earlier point, I did say that Bournemouth car park was £3.10 an hour once, 24 hours chargeable. And then Councillor Buck mentioned about Bath Road. Unfortunately, Bournemouth doesn't have our easy zoned parking, and I hadn't looked at Bath Road, and I do know that Bath Road is more expensive than I said. It's £3.50 an hour, so I'll correct that because I did say it's £3.10 an hour. So my question is, and that's on the Bournemouth website if you'd like to look at that, Councillor Buck. So on my question, so we spoke about, Councillor McMillan mentioned about a previous traffic regulation meeting that we had when the 69 was previously scrapped, and from my recollection, even though it was only running for about two months, it already made over what was projected about £275,000. Obviously, when we had the historically rainy weather, it did dip a bit, but it was producing more before that. Would it be possible to have a figure, please, I'm going to have this as a written answer, for how much, effectively, we lost last year as a result of cancelling the 69 parking, and then in extension to Councillor Ayland's question, these 47 spaces, can we find out how much revenue that has made, please? And finally, at that same meeting, I actually asked the question, when would these spaces be in, and I was told that the project, all of them would be done that year. Councillor Cox answered and said that it would be in there in time for the fireworks, which I think at the time produced quite a hearty laugh, because cancelling the 69 parking, I'm not sure how much parking you'd get from fireworks, but there you go. So, yes, if I could just have that clarified in writing, please, as to how much those 47 places have made and how much we lost as a result of that cancellation. And then my final question is around the educational permit. North Road car park is 0.3 miles away, a seven minute flat walk from St. Bernard's School. Just to clarify, when we say we're getting rid of the educational permit, we're talking about the residential areas only, and that they will still be able to purchase a car park pass as per usual in that park. The answer to your final question is yes, and the rest will get a written answer to you, thank you, Councillor Hyde. So we're moving on to comments now. I've already got three names. Councillor Allen, I said that I would bring you back in for comments. Thank you very much, Chair. I was just, I want us to look forward, and my comment is not to have it go at Councillor Bock, but it's just to say that if you are a post-portfolio holder, and you hold very important, like every portfolio holder in the City Council is very important, but this matter could have been better handled. I'm looking in front of me, email that's been sent by residents that lives around that school. As a school teacher myself, in my full-time job, I don't expect to have a parking space set aside for me. But I can understand the need, Chair, to have a parking permit that actually makes things work in that area. Unfortunately, the scheme, as it's been constructed, and we welcome the fact that it's going to be scrapped at the end of the consultation, is wrong. The loading bay, the site of the loading bay is wrong. The portion of it is wrong. We've now left the stations where the relationship between the residents around the school and the school could be better. I wouldn't say more than that. And I hope we can learn a lot of lessons from this. And we, as a new administration, will learn lessons from that. That if you're coming off the scheme like this, okay, it's a consultation scheme, it's a trial scheme, but you need to carry everybody along. Unfortunately, that hasn't happened in this case. And I hope lessons have been learned, so that when we move forward, we can move forward to actually bring the community, both the school and the residents that live around that area, together. And that is where I want us to focus on. Thank you very much, Chair. Thank you, Councillor Allen. Councillor Buck, please. Thank you, Chair. Just for clarification, there's the parking charges for Bath Road, Bournemouth, £3.13 an hour, £24.20 all day, 24 hour parking. So as I said, Southend will be more expensive at £25 for the day. I do just want to touch on the educational permit. I hear some of the comments made, however, I would state first and foremost, it was a trial. It followed all of the due process required of a trial. A trial didn't need or require a full public consultation, and it was a limited trial of a small number of passes. Only 15 passes have been issued to teachers to park in the residential parking area. The other 45 passes are in Shawfield Road and North Road car park. And again, I've got the pictures here. This was taken at 20 past 10 in the morning when all of the teachers are parked up. And this is around the corner from Hadley Road. I've consistently and constantly monitored it, as has the parking team, to make sure that there is none of this perceived impact. I think, unfortunately, there's been a few noisy residents that have been very disgruntled by this. And I accept that maybe a bit of consultation with them may have been a better option. However, it was a trial. In answer to Councillor Aylin's point around they knew what they were getting into, you have to bear in mind that all of the teachers, when they had their job at this school, were able to park. Then the Milton CPZ came in and massively not only impacted the school, but impacted many people. And we are still suffering the impacts of the Milton CPZ, as you local councillors will know. As the portfolio holder last year, I was having contact from residents living north of the London Road on the A13, because they say all it's done is pushed all of the problems that Milton Ward had into the other wards. So it doesn't solve problems, it just moves problems, putting in these massive CPZs. So we need to have grown-up conversations about this, and we need to look at how we solve these problems. If all we're going to do is keep putting CPZs in and moving them along the line, eventually we'll get to the city boundary and the whole city will be a CPZ. And what do we do then? Well, that's where we're going with it, because we're slowly increasing CPZs as we go. Yes, there are parking issues, there are parking stresses, and we need to look at that and we need to manage it, but that doesn't just mean that we disenfranchise everybody else for the benefit of one. We have a moral obligation and public duty to actually consider all people in this aspect. I mean, one of the things that we did do, with the grateful help of Neil Hunwick, is that we modified the permit as we went along, because it was a trial. And I think we've got the right balance now. In fact, I've had as many people contact me from that area, residents, as I have those that were against it for it, and some saying how they welcome the fact that the teachers are now able to find somewhere to park. So I'm very disappointed that you as portfolio holder and that this administration is just going to throw this out in the pursuit of trying to get to me and play politics, when actually what we're talking about is our highly valued educational staff and teachers in a public service just trying to come to work to do their job to educate our children. And you want them to pay £660, it'll be £720 with the increase, you want them to pay £720 a year for the privilege of parking at the school to come and teach our children. I think it's shocking and it's immoral and I think it's appalling that you would use them to try and get at me, just because I brought the scheme in. The rest of this has been a complete shambles. Financially, your amended budget is already in shreds by nearly half a million pound in the hole. We've had 568 objectors so far to the zone 1A, six to nine parking charges who have signed a petition on the council's website and they've been completely ignored and dismissed as irrelevant. Seventeen objections are actually in the paper with only four oppositions, three oppositions, sorry. And those three oppositions I highly suspect are the three ward councillors because they've all put in exactly the same plagiarised response and only a councillor would have put in the response that they've put in, a resident wouldn't have put that in. In regards to the additional spaces that have been discussed, it always said 'up to'. It never said that it would be a fixed figure and language is very important when we talk about things like this. The main reason why the income was up in parking last year was because we made Southend an attractive place for people to visit. Your punitive charges policies are going to penalise visitors coming to Southend and it will deter those from coming and as we've heard from objectors, it's going to impact their businesses. So not only are we going to lose parking revenue because people simply won't come. Where I live in Leonsea, you can turn left to be in Festival Leisure Park within 12 minutes. Why would you come to Southend and pay 10 quid to park when you can do it in the Festival Leisure with 2,000 free spaces? And if people in Lee and Rayleigh and people like that are thinking like that, why do you think we're going to attract all this extra income? And who do you think is paying that income? Who do you think uses the seafront in the evenings? The majority of people who use the seafront in the evening are the residents, so you expect residents to pay it. 4.1 clearly lays out what I'm quite certain will be the first of many policies like a ULEZ congestion charging zone or emissions-based parking charges all coming under this administration and they're all designed to make travel by car unaffordable for those car owners who can least afford it. Rather ironic that a labour-led coalition has chosen to penalise those on low incomes who come to Southend. There's also many loopholes in the Southend pass. We don't know how many residents of Southend actually have a pass because we don't capture their address, data, postcode or anything. Anyone can register from anywhere and simply be registered for the pass. I've actually had someone contact me who said they've got seven vehicles registered to one pass. That's seven cars no longer paying to pay and display, so when I ask the questions about what money have you allocated to come out of the budget for the increase of parking and you answer you haven't, you're only allocating for income, well it's an incredibly naive position to take because as people register for the pass and realise they can put the whole family, their friends, their relatives, anyone on it, they're all going to use it and there will be a loss of pay and display parking. You mentioned earlier that you're not going to be making any significant in-year budgetary changes. Well it's very fortunate for you because you have the luxury of doing that because this last Conservative Administration provided you with the luxury of the fiscal stability. Unfortunately we didn't inherit the same from you 12 months previously. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Buck. Councillor Moyes, please. Thank you, Chair. I genuinely feel a bit sorry for you. The paper that's been put forward in your name that you hadn't seen is a very serious issue. Last year I introduced a process to ensure that there was a signing-off process that included cabinet members. You said you speak to Chief Exec. I hope that's taken very seriously because we had a few instances of it still happening after the process was in and you have to clamp down on it and I know that we would support you in that. And even though although we would not perhaps agree with what's in the paper, it must be in your name and you must see beforehand. The Chief Exec has to take a serious move to make sure this doesn't happen again because how many years has that been happening for? And we changed things last year to make sure it didn't happen and the Wandering Officer should be ensuring that that does not happen. And that paper, as you write, is missing information. We're now in the chaos of having to have another meeting to discuss the bit of information that actually isn't in the paper. It's a mess. You've declared tonight that you voted for an unbalanced budget. The 151 Officer said at the time it wouldn't balance, which we thought was a bit strange, but the Conservative voted against it because we did not believe it was unbalanced and I actually resigned because there were changes made of proposals I put forward, which were difficult proposals, proposals to have a balanced budget, and changes were made, I believe, and they made it an unbalanced budget and therefore I resigned. We started the year with a full council that failed to establish any scrutiny. It's the questioning and the examination of what you're doing that has been put in place and that's actually as far as I read the law, not a law as far as I read it. We're breaking the law in what we've actually done there. Tonight we've talked about a £454,000 deficit within three months. You're going to have to take radical changes to try and fix that. It was obvious it couldn't be done because we had to have a public consultation and we had to have this meeting. When it came to the public consultation, you didn't tell people who actually objected or raised objections that this meeting was happening and invite them to come along, again keeping councillors in the dark. And that happened before. If you remember in the previous Labour administration, you had meetings in secret, making decisions for the town, with one of the portfolio holders saying that a consultation with residents would just get in the way of making the decision. So it sounds like no lessons have been learned. Straight back to last year, a year ago now, just after, the day after the election, when portfolio holders in your administration were making decisions in secret, again we're trying to make decisions with no scrutiny, with no oversight of the cabinet member and with people who have objected and not been allowed to come along and actually witness what's going on. So as far as I see this, we're looking again at this administration just looking to bring in anti-car, anti-business policies. It's clear. That's a political statement with different views about how parking should run, with a very clear view about what we thought should be done and you've changed it. I think it's failing. I think you have to take very quick action. But the biggest action of all is how this council is running, because at the moment it's chaotic, acting illegally in my opinion, and something needs to be done to fix it, because we are in a big mess right at this minute. Scooting meetings cancelled, papers going through that shouldn't go through, public not being invited, decisions being made in secret. You really have to turn this around quickly because this is a mess. Thank you, Councillor Moyes. Councillor Allen. Thank you, Mr Chairman. I do note disappointingly that one of the Councillors has gone on, which I think is bad. We're planning on that 500 extra parking spaces. Well, let's be realistic. We know there won't be 500 cars every single day earning money. In fact, we know the whole seafront won't be earning lots of money. We're thinking or we're going through with a charge from six to nine o'clock of £3 an hour. Has there any thought been put into a six to nine charge which is much reduced? If we're going to charge people, if we charge them say £3 for six to nine, because a lot of these people coming from six to nine will turn up at seven, or in the summer like it is now, they'll turn up at eight o'clock because they only have to pay £3. We could reduce that cost if we really must bring in charging. That would still give us an income. We have 500 extra coming on and we will have people coming to the seafront still. I was told earlier that people turn up for restaurant appointments for six o'clock, but they have to park at 5.30 and they don't mind paying for, well they have to pay an hour, but they don't mind it. But you get to a point where people are going to go stuff that, we're not going to park there, we're going to go to Lee, where there's already huge parking problems in the evenings, you can't park, you can't get near the place, they'll go elsewhere. And where I live, I've only got to drive down the road to Basildon where I can park for free with all the leisure places and everything else. So I think we should go back and have a think about this. What money are we going to actually earn if we reduce the amount that we charge on that period, if we have to charge, we will probably earn more money than the current situation. And that's what you've got to look at. We want people to come. You're going to be putting on, as I read in the paper, some fantastic events, and I hope you're going to bring the classic car run back, that bring people to the seafront. A lot of them drift into the evenings and the other thing is a lot of people will come to those events and stay for the evenings, stay on the beach, have their fish and chips, go and have a drink. So I think that should be looked at. One thing that's been missed off tonight, that I missed and I forgot to ask about, parking permits for a voluntary. If you volunteer to work in the lifeboat station, you get on the pier free, you've got to pay a fortune to park or walk or catch the bus. The problem with catching the bus is the people who volunteer have got bus passes and can't use them until nine o'clock. For example, I know two people who volunteer in Belfares because the first bus is 856 from Belgrade Road. They have to pay currently £2. But this is an issue and there's also that's been withdrawn years ago that I think should be reconsidered, is press passes. The press give us good press. If they've got a press pass, they're going to give us good press. They're going to come to South End and park up and give us good press, which would encourage people to come who would pay the parking. So it's an ongoing thing. I think I'll leave it there as it comments and I hope you'll have a think about those items. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Wakefield, please. Yes, thank you. And obviously you're going to indulge in quite a lot of the answers for people anyway. Six to nine, in the budget, the figures that come around to what they were going to receive was based on six to nine charging, two hours per night for five days per week for only 26 weeks. So if we can increase on that, then obviously there'd be more money in it for us. And the other thing. And also like many other comments that you were saying about obviously 4.1, basically a lot of the bays down the seafront aren't actually bayed out correctly. They're just long bays. They're not individually bayed. And so you're not maximising on the cars that can actually park in these areas. And we need to maximise every inch of the seafront out that we can. And I fully appreciate that there needs to be a review of all the actual zones and obviously especially zone 1A. And to clarify something, I've been going to Yarmouth quite a lot recently. Now Yarmouth being a conservative run when I actually took the photograph here. Yarmouth does actually do eight to nine parking. It starts off at £2, but it increases in costs as you stay longer. Up to 13 hours, £47.40 P in Yarmouth. And Yarmouth is a big destination. It's a mini Blackpool. And they do that for a reason because they know they're going to get the revenue. And all this talk about revenue, I kind of try to tell people basically, we know that the budget is tight. South End is open for business. South End needs the money to run the town. If South End is in a deficit, it should be run like a business. Every year it gets a certain amount of capital to come in. It doesn't have to look for that money because it's automatically given it. If it was a business, every business has to try and look for that income to come in. So South End has to be more business like and look outside the box and try and get that money in. Because you've got 80% of the councils around about that budget, adult social services and children's services, it costs the council a lot of money. So the people that obviously object to parking a little bit extra, are they objecting say for instance their parents having the care that the council pay for? Because one will affect the other. If you're not getting the revenue in, then obviously you're going to have to cut budgets somewhere else. And some of them are going to be serious actual discussions to have. CPZs, I know Kevin Black doesn't like CPZs that much, but they are a controversy. Obviously there's a lot of the actual areas along the sea front that are nine to nine. Milton's nine to nine, some of the along with nine to nine. It's just clarification on some of the areas down in Thorpe needs to be extended because they're till six. So obviously displacement, so people actually park in that area. And Steve Dummy get parking in the town is unfair. There is no charges in Lee, but there's charges in the town. So in the daytime, all my customers have to pay for parking. They don't need Lee, but they still come. So if you're looking at zones and where you pay and you don't pay, an unfair business, it is already unfair right the way across the town. But that's why the town is always the nature of the town and the seafront and the way it's been laid out. It was a good idea obviously about trying to come in with the Cliffs Pavilion and then trying to match something for that. But the Cliffs Pavilion is a private enterprise just like obviously the other businesses along the seafront itself. Yes, and the thing about the things that we offer, there is one big failure we do not do. We do not advertise, seriously advertise correctly what we have to offer. If we advertise correctly, here I say make a declaration, if we advertise on Southend Radio to advertise for six slots per day in that radio station will cost you around about £1400 a year. And the return would be horrendously great because you're telling everybody about what we have to offer. The Southend Pass is fantastic. Everybody I speak to, every consistent, they all say what a brilliant idea the Southend Pass is. And most people have actually taken it up. Especially the Trades Permit, that is great, that needs to happen. It's obviously been a bit rocky to take off but it needs to happen. And then also the commuter zones, paying for a specific car park to park there. For the commuters that are starting to travel, if we don't obviously we've got to provide the actual facilities so the commuters can park in before we put the CPZ in. Because you need to obviously facilitate for these people. Very, very good to hear tonight that obviously we're not going ahead with the eastern esplanade and that will stay as it is. That's great news for the residents down there. It's not that probably they would object but the fact is it would be good to, if they were going to do that, is to consult with them first. And then obviously offer a CPZ or something for the residents so they can actually park rather than trying just to railroad it in. I'm sure that they're going to be well overjoyed about that. We're not anti-car, we're not anti-business, that's why we are bringing the Trades Permit in. So we're not anti-business, we're trying to encourage trades people to come around the town and do their work without fear of getting ticketed. That's enough on comments for a minute but I have a few questions and any other business. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Wakefield. Councillor Cox. Thank you, Chair. There have been a number of points that have been made that is worthwhile echoing. First of all, I can't believe we were going to vote on a proposal that doesn't actually appear in the papers. Could you imagine if I hadn't flagged that up and those charges had gone in or hadn't gone in and it went against the TRO? That's just appalling. We should never get ourselves into that position. And equally, I do want to echo the point that whilst we may disagree on the policies of this, there is no way you should have your name attached to a paper that you haven't seen. It's disgusting, it's disgraceful and I would support you 100% in stopping that practice to happen because that shouldn't happen to anybody. How on earth could we proceed with shambles like that? Just on those two. Two points alone. That is without, never in my time have I seen objections that have been raised to any TROs never been invited. Never been invited where a speaker could then speak on behalf and then bring those points. That's what Councillor Allen said. They may have brought something else additional to the piece, but we won't know that. I hope when the next TRO comes to this committee that objectors or those who are in favour of the charges, because they could be invited too, that they are. Anyone would think it was almost done for purpose. Nothing to see here. These are controversial. Let's not do this. Move along. Nothing to see. Let's just get these in. It's a shameful way to proceed. That's not democracy. Democracy should proceed like that. If we think about just before the elections last year, I suppose at least we had this meeting. Last time we just had an officer take it on his back to ride roughshod and not even actually have this meeting. Could you imagine if there was a judicial review for that? It could be argued that someone, because it goes against the part of our process and our constitution, that this could be judicial review. But you've taken that decision to proceed and that's fair enough. But let's go back to the point. In this paper here we have got budgetary deficits and we've now got the absurd situation whereby people had voted for certain charges to come in to now not support them. That just seems crackers. Just smacks of chaos. But when we look at the six to nine parking charges, when we looked at the empirical evidence for when they were in place for the short period before we removed them, they weren't actually making any money. They were losing money. Now, there is going to be an impact and I think Councillor Ailin hit them now right on the head. And where we're going to feel it most is during the fireworks season. The amount of people that would come to the seafront, pay for an hour, stay for the fireworks that fall into that six to nine parking period. Heaving at times when we wouldn't necessarily have visitors. Do you think people are going to pay for that hour plus the others? They're not. We're going to see a dramatic fall because it's residents who predominantly come after six o'clock. That's what I've been told many a time. And these charges do actually hit the poorest, the poorest in our town by doing that. Now, I don't think we should proceed with these because I don't think they're actually going to make us money from the evidence I saw from when they were in place. The impacts that we knew we had and it was interesting from where we had deficits in the months where they were to when they picked up in terms of income. Now, when we look at the overall totality of parking charges, you yourself, Chair, said that the parking budget was in surplus last year. Well, I'm glad there's a recognition for that because we were told we were losing money and clearly we didn't. Now, if we never had those, we didn't have those charges paid for yet there was still a surplus. So why is there the need to put them in there if we were going to have a surplus? Some of these figures just do not add up. Now, as Councillor Moyse said, there is a valid point here. There is no way I would vote for an unbalanced budget because it's illegal to do so and it's illegal to do so knowingly. When we were told, Councillor Moyse and I, what was it, half an hour before the budget, that the amendments weren't balanced and then probably neither would the substantive one? There was no way I was going to vote for it. That's why I voted against it. We should have all voted against it, come back and put a balanced budget in place and dealt with the problem. I can't support these charges because one other thing, one other main point that we have to recognise is that councils should be an enabler for businesses. One of the biggest enablers to business are punitive parking charges. Businesses won't stay in those areas, they will go elsewhere. That's not what we want, certainly if we don't want a seafront that thrives. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Cox. Councillor Sadtzer, please. Thank you, Chair. I take the points of the opposition with the increased parking charges from 6 to 9 that residents who are on the poverty line will be affected most. But a lot of residents don't have cars in the first place and we have good public transport links by train to get to the seafront to see the fireworks and other things. But I think what we have to remember is that a lot of councils have gone to the wall, like Tharuk for instance, with huge deficits which we have not had. And we have to think forward of increasing the amount of money, as Councillor Wakefield has referred to, we need to increase our budgets because there's less money coming from central government. And this is one way that we can do it. The parking charges from 6 to 9, a lot of people with families will leave before 6. Okay, it might be adverse for people who are going for dinner, but I think people will still come to the seafront, still come to dinner. With the cost of living crisis, a lot of people are not coming to have meals out because they can't afford it. And we've seen businesses go out of, businesses have closed down like some of the nightclubs because people are no longer frequenting them. So I think those people who do come for special occasions will be willing to pay the extra money on the seafront and I think this is where we will be able to make extra revenue. And as far as the education permits, it was a trial and fair enough I do understand that we should support teachers, but there are many schools where, for myself, I used to work at the hospital and I had to pay for parking or walk for 10 to 15 minutes to get to work with a heavy bag. So I think we can't just only help certain groups of people, we have to think of everyone as Councillor Cox has said, but I hope that you will vote for the increased parking charges at the future meeting. Thank you. Thank you. Councillor McMullan. Thank you, Chair. Just touching on a few points, going back to the 448 parking spaces that were going to be created and we only got 47 of them, so just barely over 10%. I would have said that's pretty poor effort, even if it's to be a long term plan, but going back to the paper at the time, it did say that the additional spaces would be created within 1 to 9 months, so to have only got 10% of them within 12 months or 10 months is really a little bit thin in terms of excuses. A couple of other things I'd like to touch on. Councillor Allen, I think, was kind of going there, looking at almost dynamic pricing in parking, perhaps lowering off-season parking might be something we might be able to look at in the future. If you want to take it in another part of life, in hospitality, some pubs and bars you go into have dynamic pricing on beer and at certain times, like for instance if there's a football game on, you pay a bit more for your pint and at other times, maybe on a quiet Monday afternoon, you pay a bit less. Going forward, I think instead of having these rigid payment structures, rigid zones, I think there's a case to look at everything in the round going forward and I'm pleased to hear that you said you would look at the zones because I think the zone system we currently have is a little bit too rigid. And there is, I think we've already moved one car park around from one zone to another, I think there's scope to look at that whole zone business. Now nobody wants to pay extra to park. Everybody would love to park for free. Councillor Sather just mentioned it, we are financially constrained and parking revenue is one of those areas where we can try and make up the shortfall. Not my party but I hope if your party does end up in number 10 in a couple of months time, that maybe government will look a bit more favourably on local government and the money that it brings sense down to us. But one of the ways that that revenue is then spent and people can look at it in the round, that extra parking revenue, in that budget, we also had in there three extra community safety offices. Now more people coming to the seafront. I think Councillor Dent has already said he wants to have more events. I'm very pleased that City Jam is coming back in a couple of months time. I know there are other events planned. More people, more events, more community safety offices, more people feeling safe, more people coming. So the whole thing, look at it in the round and also within that budget amount, there was money for extra traffic wardens, the civil enforcement officers. Well in my ward, we have issues around schools, around parking and again if some of that revenue then gets cross subsidised into hiring more CEOs so that we can deal with very dangerous and very poor parent parking in some of the schools in Eastwood, then that's to be welcomed. So we shouldn't just focus on one area of this and look at the whole thing in totality, the whole thing in the round and I think we should just get on with it. Thank you very much, Chair. Thank you, Councillor McMullan. Last person on my list is Councillor Hyde. Thanks, Chair. As Councillor McMullan mentioned, I think in a world of rainbows and unicorns, no one would have to pay to park but that's not the reality. Everything costs, free parking costs. As I've said, places like Lakeside, Buzzard and Festival Leisure Park, it's free to customers, it's not free to businesses. If you look at the business rates they're paying and the rents they're paying twice what we pay in order to pay effectively for those parking. As I said, I think if the seafront businesses want to pay for spaces so they can subsidise that for their customers, we're open to that conversation. So that is something that they are concerned. However, I think just to alleviate their concerns, the reason I asked about other councils is because when you look at pretty much every compatible seaside location, we are the standout odd one in that we stop our parking at six o'clock and we're quite cheap. If those other seaside places haven't seen that drop, then I think we should at least consider it. Now, I always mention that I'm a scientist, I'm very fact and evidence-based. If we find that actually there has been this huge drop in visitors, we get seven million a year right now and we linked it to this, then obviously we'll review the next budget. But I think you have to look at what other people are doing and how other councils are delivering value for money for their residents. Because at the moment it's quite clear to me that effectively what's happening is council taxpayers are subsidising our visitors. It's not just road repairs, which we know at the moment is substantially increased because a lot of visitors do come by car, so they are adding to the wear and tear. In my own brief of waste, I was astonished to find about 20% of our waste disposal is due to street waste. And the vast majority of our street waste is reduced at the seafront and along the high street, overwhelmingly. And when you look at how much money we are spending on disposal of our waste, it is hundreds of thousands of pounds, millions of pounds in total when you take it into account. So in essence, just to get rid of the waste on the seafront of visitors, it's hundreds of thousands of pounds. Then when you added the fact that we do need to have extra safety officers, street cleansing, the wear and tear, at the moment how much we are bringing in from the income, it isn't actually covering that. As that means that it's council taxpayers that are having to effectively subsidise to pay to dispose of their waste, to pay for that extra enforcement to stop crime on their seafront, to pay for that extra enforcement around parking and on the wear and tear. So I think it's the fairer thing to do, is to look at this and find a fair balance. I think it's a really good mitigation here around the South End Pass that residents who do go to the seafront, and some are even encouraged by it, is having the South End Pass which gives them those hours for free. But what we know is overwhelmingly our visitors that are parking on the seafront are not from South End. That's not to say that South End people don't come, but when you look in our economy reports and where those visitors are coming from, the vast majority are not residents. In fact, residents are more likely to park up on the high street and walk down, which of course is remaining charge-less after six o'clock. Speaking more broadly about some of these things, I actually think the trade permit and the changes to it is a really fantastic idea that's come from outside my party. I'm going to recognise it because when you look at the economic report for South End, you look at how people are, what their professions are in the city. Number one is public service, number two is engineering, manufacturing, technical things. Number three is trades, is trades work. And I'm absolutely, the leisure and tourism is so important, it's seventh on that list. But when you're looking at the amount of traders we have in the city, I think when we think about the plumbers, when we think about the even travelling beauticians, when we think about estate agents and people that need to go out and about into all these different places, I think it's a really good offer. I think the suggestions to simplify it are brilliant and I think a target of 100 trades per minute. So I think once it catches on, it will be far in excess of that, so I wanted to recognise that. One other thing, the last thing I want to say on these measures that I actually thought was really good was about the Ilfracombe car park, the fact that that's moving into zone two, I think is really good as well. That offers South Church High Street, I think it's better positioned as more of a sort of residence car park rather than a tourist one where we would look at zone one. So I think that that will be really positive for South Church High Street and it would probably help remove some of the parking pressure that you get around South ND station. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Ayling, you had a point you wanted to come back on? Just to be clear of interest, Councillor McCollum mentioned the jam, I'm painting a wall in the jam. Thank you, Councillor Ayling, I look forward to seeing your jam. So I'll sum up quickly because it's been a long meeting. First and foremost, thank you to our public speakers and our colleagues who are not on the committee for coming along and giving us their comments tonight and things to think about. Councillor Buck, who unfortunately isn't here, so I can't reassure him in person that the changes that we're suggesting are not personal, we're not trying to get at him politically. I do note that practically every speech Councillor Buck makes is a political, party political speech, but the changes to the educational permit or the removal of the educational permit, the ending of the trial, has come about because of the overwhelming views of local people who are not happy with what has happened and do feel that it is causing an issue where they live. And we have a duty to listen to them and that is what we are doing and perhaps Councillor Buck has had different emails to the ones that we've had, but I haven't had a single email saying that this is positive. I have been portfolio holder for technically about 10 days. I've had countless emails about this particular issue and a number of issues around there which came in as part of this trial. The second point that is really worth noting is that Eastern Esplanade was not explicitly in the budget. Parking revenue was in the budget, but Eastern Esplanade, those charges were introduced after the budget was passed and they were introduced in an improper manner. They were not in the budget. So the up to 448 spaces, yes I agree with you Councillor McMurphy, it's a pretty poor show to only have 47 in after 12 months when a paper said that we'd have them in within one to nine months. And there's also a significant financial commitment revenue that he said we would bring in far in excess of what those spaces could realistically, those 47 spaces could realistically bring in. There's been some fear mongering regarding sort of the seven vehicles on the pass. There may very well be one household that have registered seven vehicles to their one pass, but the really important point to note is they can only use it one at a time. So those seven cars cannot all park at the exact same time, so there is no loss of revenue in the way that it has been described. The other bit of fear mongering that we really have to put to bed, we've put to bed multiple times in the press, Councillor Buck will routinely ask the question several hundred times on Twitter in a week. You les is not coming to South End. This administration will not introduce you les. This administration will not introduce les either, and it will not introduce low traffic neighbourhoods. It will not introduce 15 minute cities. We cannot be clearer than that. Continuing to say something that you've been repeatedly told will not happen just makes you a liar. Councillor Cox and Moyes, I thank you for feeling sorry for me. It's much appreciated. I feel the warmth. However, I believe the situation has been dealt with appropriately and I'm confident that it won't happen again, but I appreciate your offers of support. As for scrutiny being cancelled, one of them had no business anyway. The other two had very light touch business, which were hangovers from the previous administration. So I would imagine if you have many, many detailed questions about those papers, I would have to ask why you were allowing them to progress in the first place. But scrutinies have not been cancelled. They have been postponed. They will happen on the 17th and the 20th of June. You will have ample opportunity to scrutinise the administration. Do not worry about that. As for some of the comments that have been made about revenue and the effect on business, Councillor Wakefield makes fantastic points about where we have to leverage our revenue and we have to recognise the assets that we have as an authority, but also the cost of the upkeep of those assets and we cannot continue to allow them to always be used for free. I cannot go to one of the bars or restaurants who have put in their objections, sit at one of their tables and not buy a drink, not buy anything to eat, but I can continue to use all of their amenities for free. They would not allow that to happen. We should not allow our amenities to be used for free. There will always be an opportunity for them to be used for free or for the cost to be kept as low as possible, but where they are being used heavily, we should look to increase our revenue and last year the six to nine parking charges in the two months it was operational achieved almost 80% of what it believed it would take over a 12 month period. I believe the estimate, someone asked the question earlier, how much was lost, I believe that was provided, an estimate was provided to Councillor Terry last year before budget and it was approximately £800,000 worth of lost revenue. Now even if it was only half of that, what we actually achieved plus the £400,000 that we could have got, 50% of what they said we lost is still more than we have predicted for this year which shows that there is an appetite for using those spaces and for us to generate a revenue. The commuter parking offer, I appreciate that being raised because that is something that we do need to look at. We have committed to expanding the South End Pass as much as possible when it first came in. It was the first scheme of its kind. It is an ingenious solution to a problem which is how do you maximise revenue from your visitors in a seaside location whilst affording your residents the benefits of the cheapest possible parking they can have. The South End Pass does that and I applaud Councillor Woodley for bringing it forward and having the foresight and the forcefulness to bring it here. Now it's our job to see what we can do to make it even better. How can we expand it even more? We've shown we can do it in one way by having the six to nine parking charges exempt for people who have the South End Pass. That's an additional benefit. We can now also look at what can we do to help with commuter parking if you're a South End Pass holder as well. The beauty of the South End Pass to the authority is that yes, it gives much cheaper parking to residents but it gives us predictable, stable income that we can use to invest in some of the services that Councillor Hyde mentioned. The street cleaning, Councillor McMullan said about the enforcement, having the community safety officers, etc. In terms of deficits in income last year I completely reject the idea that we lost the income because we had six to nine charges and they went back up. All of the figures, which I'm happy to share with every Councillor, demonstrate that parking income went down because it was a soggy, soggy summer and when it became dry again parking income went back up. We are a seaside town, seaside city. People come here when it's sunny, they tend not to come here when it's wet. What we are doing with, which is unrelated to this, but what we are doing with our cultural offer and our tourism offer is to try to get people to come here no matter the weather. That's the task ahead of us. Parking last year, the parking department is predicted to be in surplus in this budget. I didn't say it was in surplus last year. What I said was the parking revenue that was supposed to come from the 448 spaces did not come in. However, it was offset by the fact that parking revenue was up above what was predicted. However, the highways department as a whole overspent quite significantly and this year, quite bizarrely, there is a budget which states that it is going to be in a net positive position to the tune of £250,000, which is a nonsense, but that is something that we will have to work our way through. The point about not advertising enough, completely agree. We don't advertise enough, but we've got the option of the radio, we've got that fantastic display board on the side of the Victoria now. We have lots of ways that when we contact our residents, we send them out letters. The backside of that letter could list all of our parking offers, such as the trades person permit, the South End Pass. Every opportunity we have to communicate this fantastic scheme or our other fantastic scheme, such as the trades person permit, we should take that opportunity. And the final point that I'll raise about the legitimacy of this meeting is that if Councillor Cox had raised the point to postpone the meeting with me last week, I probably would have done it. Turning up and doing it just as the meeting has started is not a way to operate, which is why we have proceeded with this and we will now move to the vote. Thank you. Tim? Thank you, Chair. Through you, we've got the recommendations set out in the report. There have been no amendments proposed or seconded, so I will put those to the working party. They are set out in paragraphs 2.1, 2.2 and 2.3 of the report. Please come over and show of hands. All those in favour? 7, Chair. Any against? 1, 2, 3, 4. 4 against. That's carried, Chair. I now ask the Cabinet Committee, if I may, to make the decision. That's a recommendation to the Cabinet Committee from the working party. So you've got three Cabinet Committee members here. Please come over and show of hands. All those in favour of the recommendation of the working party. We will vote in favour of the recommendation of the Committee. That's unanimous. Thank you. That's carried. I don't see any problem with that, Councillor Cox. Thank you, everyone, for attending. Could you please stop the webcast?