Following recent letters and editorial coverage on the subject of car parking charges it is clear that UKIP and Labour councillors lack a basic grasp of financial matters. First we have two UKIP councillors comparing nine months' income with 12 months expenditure and next we have the leader of the district councillors Labour group leader claiming that an increase of nine pence a week in council tax would offset the need to charge for car parking. Here are the facts.

Running council car parks has always cost money to cover the upkeep and repair as well as running costs such as business rates. This cost of around £160,000 a year has normally been paid by council tax payers.

The charge of 20p per hour has raised £142,000 in the first year and means that the majority of the cost of running the car parks now falls on the motorists that choose to use them and no longer on all council tax payers.

Management costs for implementing charging are lower than expected because we use the same service that manages the on-street parking service. Far from making a loss charging for use of our car parks has saved over £140,000. This enables us to continue vital services like our leisure centres and support local groups like the CAB.

Increasing council tax by nine pence a week would raise £122,000 but because this would equate to an increase of around 2.9 per cent the council would lose £48,000 of government funding payable for keeping council tax unchanged and would be forced to hold a referendum on the increase because it breached the government two per cent limit. That cost estimated at £100,000 would leave the council a net £26,000 worse off with the £160,000 cost of running the car parks still to be found. Not a bright idea.

Charging just 20p per hour for the convenience of parking in the centre of our towns has removed the burden of running car parks from the tax payer. For regular parkers a monthly season ticket it costs 60 pence to park all day.

Over 400,000 tickets were purchased in the first year. If we add in the thousands that use short term free on street parking or seek out the free parking that is still available it is clear that many motorists are continuing to visit our towns on a regular basis. When they do they find good quality parking facilities and modern public conveniences.

This step to remove the burden of running car parks from tax payers is just one of the steps that has enabled this Conservative led council to freeze council tax for three years. Over £4m has been removed from the council running costs over the past six years. We will continue to drive cost out of local government and keep your council tax down.

– Brian Robinson, Deputy Leader Forest of Dean District Council.