Every council car park in Carmarthenshire would offer the first hour free under plans going to the county’s cabinet on Monday, but the free parking days towns use for Christmas and events would be scrapped, along with the free periods in short-stay car parks.
The proposals, drawn up for Carmarthenshire County Council by consultants AtkinsRéalis, cover 67 car parks with more than 5,000 spaces, 41 of them chargeable and 26 currently free.
In Carmarthen and Llanelli, drivers would pay nothing for the first hour, then £2 for a two-hour stay, £3 for three and £4 for four hours or all day. Everywhere else, including Ammanford, the first hour is free, two to four hours cost £2 and all day £2.50.
Longer stays would run from £7 for two days to £16 for five in the two main towns, and from £5 to £11 elsewhere. The cheapest tariff anywhere in the county at present is 70p, the report notes.
Officers say the flat structure would let the council fix its prices for up to three years, ending the annual round of price reviews and legal order changes.
The free days scrutiny wanted to keep
Towns across Carmarthenshire are currently offered five free parking days a year to use as they wish, and in past years the council has agreed extra December dates for Christmas events. Monday’s report asks the cabinet to remove them.
That puts the cabinet at odds with the council’s own scrutiny committee. When the strategy went before the Place, Sustainability and Climate Change committee on 23 July, councillors recommended keeping the town council free days and sharing the strategy with town and community councils for consultation. The cabinet report recommends removal, and lists “no other options available”.
The case against the free offers is blunt. The report says the free parking periods introduced in 2018 have had “little or no measurable impact on town centre footfall”, and that busier free days owe more to the events they coincide with than to the free parking itself.
What it raises, and what it pays for
The council’s preferred package would add around £199,600 a year to parking income, modelled on the ten busiest car parks in the three main towns using last year’s ticket sales. Keeping the current tariffs while adding a free hour would cost £47,700. The report calls the figures a sensitivity test rather than a forecast.
The money would go on signs, lines and resurfacing, more electric vehicle chargers, and number plate recognition barriers “where appropriate”, so drivers pay only for the time they stay. Solar canopies over car parks are to be explored.
The evidence behind the plan includes number plate surveys at ten car parks last summer, which found stays of up to an hour the most common. Capacity across the estate is sufficient overall, the report says, though John Street in Carmarthen and Eastgate in Llanelli are consistently busy, and some car parks lose money.
Parking came up repeatedly in three rounds of public engagement on the council’s town centre placemaking plans for Ammanford, Carmarthen and Llanelli, with people raising ease of payment, the availability of short-stay spaces and the role of cheap or free parking in bringing footfall.
Charges are a sore point beyond the main towns. More than 1,600 people signed a petition last year against charging at car parks in Burry Port, Kidwelly and Ferryside that had always been free.
The strategy also recommends looking at a wider season ticket offer, reviewing enforcement hours and moving to number plate ticketing. Most penalty notices are issued on weekdays at peak times, with parking without a valid ticket the most common offence.
The decision rests with the cabinet alone, with no full council vote required, under Cllr Edward Thomas, the cabinet member for transport, waste and infrastructure. The cabinet meets on Monday 7 September, and any new tariffs would need fresh parking orders before they take effect.
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