Car parking charges don’t put off people from visiting town centres, a Powys council chief has claimed.

At a meeting of Powys County Council’s Economy, Residents and Communities scrutiny committee on 6 November, car parking charges were discussed as councillors looked at the impact of cuts and savings delivered by a number of council departments last year.

This included the Highways, Transport and Recycling department which had made £1.53m in savings during 2024/2025 as part of efforts to save a council-wide £12.9m.

The report shows that the department had made just over £317,000 during the year from the increased car parking fees which had contributed to the department’s overall savings.

But following a review which had been pushed for by opposition councillors who claimed the price hike was putting off people shopping in towns, new car parking arrangements – including the reintroduction of the one-hour parking charge in long-stay car parks – were introduced in August.

As a consequence, the report shows that £75,490 of income that would have been made by the 2023 car parking fees has been written off.

This money would have been used as a saving to offset losses in other parts of the department.

Head of Highways Transport and Recycling, John Forsey said that academics from Aberystwyth University had helped conduct the car parking review as they are “well versed” on this area of research.

Mr Forsey said: “From the research there doesn’t seem to be a correlation between footfall on the high street and car parking charges.

“It more around the offer rather than the thought of paying.”

He said that it is only a “perception” that car parking fees put off people from visiting town centres and that further research from the Welsh Government had also found that this was not the case.