Off street parking proposals out to consultation tomorrow

At today’s meeting of the Highland Council’s Economy and Infrastructure committee members discussed progress made in implementing the first phase of their proposed off-street car parking policy.

The first phase includes council owned car parks across five council wards – Wick and East Caithness; North West Sutherland; Tain and Easter Ross; Cromarty Firth; and Badenoch and Strathspey. East Sutherland proposals will follow in the second phase.

At a special meeting of the former Environment, Development and Infrastructure committee, held in October last year, councillors agreed a new approach to the introduction of car parking charges across the area that will see a surplus of income split 50/50 with local areas.

Information packs will be issued tomorrow to community councils and other statutory and key stakeholders including emergency services, freight transport/road haulage associations, business improvement districts, access panels and relevant local trusts and associations.

Chairman of the committee, Cllr Trish Robertson said: “It was good to have the chance to review progress made to date with the first phase of the roll-out. The next stage is all about gaining feedback from community councils and other stakeholders to help inform the next step in the statutory process. The packs being issued to phase 1 stakeholders tomorrow are very clear and provide detailed information and a questionnaire. I encourage input from stakeholders at this stage as their local insight will assist the team to review and, where appropriate, amend proposals before going to a wider public consultation.

“The public have told us they would like the council to look at income generation opportunities rather than reducing services. Members have already agreed that the surplus money generated from the introduction of off-street car parking charges will be split equally between local areas and services. This will allow for councillors to target priorities within their community such as improving infrastructure and investing in facilities.”

Do you want to respond to this article? If so, click here to submit your thoughts and they may be published in print.