A NUMBER of Cornwall councillors are angry with a decision to ‘offload’ 19 council-owned car parks, many of which are currently free or free for part of the year.

The local authority’s strategic director for sustainable growth has agreed that the car parks, which are based across the Duchy, can be leased to Corserv Solutions Ltd. They are then likely to be run by a private car park enforcement company using ANPR equipment.

The move is part of the Conservative cabinet-endorsed decision a year ago to hand over 2,000 environment and heritage assets. These include beaches, country parks, playing fields, green spaces and car parks in a bid to save millions of pounds in running and maintenance costs.

The council believes decentralisation of the assets would be more effective if run by town and parish councils, environmental or heritage trusts, the council’s own arm’s length companies like Corserv and the private sector.

The car parks are considered to no longer be required to manage traffic or provide a role in the strategic transport network. “There is a clear connection between the assets and use by residents and visitors of our environmental assets,” says the report. However, many councillors disagree, arguing that a number are in town centres and not near “environmental assets” such as beaches.

The 19 car parks – which have been reduced from an original proposal of 25 following responses from local councillors – are:

The decision was subject to a call-in request by Cllr Thalia Marrington who, along with a number of supporting councillors, argues that many of the car parks can’t be described as “environmental assets”.

Speaking about the car park at St Peter’s Hill Newlyn, in her division, she asked the council: “Has this car park been visited by any officer as part of the decisions that this is an ‘environmental asset’ and not ‘a critical part of the carpark network’. I really think that there has been inadequate consultation if these car parks are still on the list given that any cursory visit to Newlyn would [make anyone] aware that there is a huge parking problem for residents.

“It is an urban not rural area where residents mix with the industry and commercial centre, so I cannot see how this is anything other than inadequate consulting.”

Cllr Marrington added that many other local members had raised that the car parks in their divisions are not environmental assets and do not meet the criteria as set out and “more importantly do meet the criteria for being part of the main traffic management and car parking critical network”.

Paul Grant, the council’s new monitoring officer, has rejected Cllr Marrington’s request for the matter to be called in, stating that the car parks adhere to the “environmental assets” criteria and that consultation was satisfactory.

Cllr Tim Dwelly, chair of the council’s economic scrutiny committee, is not happy with the officer’s decision. He has written to Mr Grant stating that several of the car parks on the list “are very obviously nothing to do with accessing environmental land”.

His letter to the monitoring officer asks: “Please can you review whether all the car parks in the list pass a plausible test: are they ‘linked to environmental assets’? It’s important legal protects proper due process.”