Somerset this week: 21 February 2025
This week we take a look at new car park charges, reductions in PCSO numbers, more dental appointments - or not, Somerset still struggles to balance the books, good news in Watchet and stargazing.
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Heard it all before
Somerset Council is to review parking charges, as you may have heard. And there is no issue (excepting perhaps potholes) that gets residents engaged in council matters quite like car parking.
As regular readers of Somerset Confidential® will be aware, this is not the first time we have had a look at the way parking charges are implemented across the county. We took a look at the same issue back in November 2023, the last time that there was a significant hike in parking charges.
As we noted then, it will be the local economy that suffers. The Portas Report published way back in December 2011 concluded: “Local areas should implement free controlled parking schemes that work for their town centres and we should have a new parking league table.”
Parking and the impact it has on the local economy is something that councils tend to have a poor grasp of. They are generally organisations that spend money. They are not commercial bodies and it is inevitable that – with a poor grasp of commercial reality – they only see the pound notes coming in, and not the damage that hiking parking charges does to town centre businesses.
The new big ideas include:
Introducing a new county-wide overnight charge in car parks.
Standardising charges for Sunday parking at all car parks – currently this only applies at some car parks.
Introducing charges at car parks which are currently free.
Introducing on-street charging to limited waiting bays in town centres – currently this only applies in some areas.
Of course we have to remember that Somerset Council are fighting off bankruptcy and this is an asset they can milk. That makes for an added incentive to ignore the commercial reality faced by the towns who will bear the economic cost of this policy
No doubt those town councils that do not already own their car parks, will be looking for ways to buy them off Somerset Council. Bridgwater Town Council Leader Brian Smedley certainly thinks this is the way to go: “If we ran our own car parks, then that would be an income stream for Bridgwater, and it would also mean that other towns and parishes could set their charges locally or make them free if they want.”
One option would be to create their own car parks and provide free parking in competition to car parks owned by Somerset Council.
The new proposals will be discussed at the Council Executive of 26 February and, if approved, will go out to a public consultation.
However we wanted to consider, ahead of the meeting, the official reason for the latest hike in parking charges. We’ll let the council explain: “Prior to the Council’s review of parking charges there was some inconsistency across the county – in some cases parking charges had not increased for several years.”
OK, we confess we cheated. That is the official reason for the charges hike. But this was the reason given to us by Somerset Council way back on 2 November 2023 the last time charges were hiked.
In the light of which we would like to leave you with a question. If the reason for hiking parking charges in November 2023 was to correct inconsistency of parking charges across the council area, then why is it still the official reason for a hike in parking charges in 2025?
why is it still the official reason for a hike in parking charges in 2025?
Did the council do a poor job of correcting inconsistencies last time around? In which case will the public receive an apology and an explanation?
We showed Somerset Council a copy of this article before publication, inviting them to comment. They declined to do so.
More? Or less?
Yeovil MP Adam Dance drew our attention to the latest statistics issued by the Home Office for the number of PCSOs in the Avon & Somerset Police Force. The figures showed the number of PCSOs (Full Time Equivalents) across England & Wales declined by 235 in the year to September 2024.
of those 235 PCSO post losses, 60 of them (that’s over a quarter) were cuts in the Avon & Somerset force
However, of those 235 PCSO post losses, 60 of them (that’s over a quarter) were in the Avon & Somerset force. In fact the total reduction in PCSO numbers for the south west was just 77, meaning nearly all of them were from our force area.
Ironically, the numbers have been published just as the current Government announced a new Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee, which included a pledge to recruit extra PCSOs.
We asked Avon & Somerset Police what was going on and why local reductions had been so drastic? In a nutshell it all came down to saving money. A spokesperson for Avon & Somerset Police telling us: “We temporarily paused recruitment of new PCSOs towards the end of the 2023/24 financial year to reduce the number of PCSOs we have in force. This decision, which was approved as part of last year's budget plans, was made as part of the savings we identified we needed going into the 2024/25 financial year. It reflected the difficult choices we face as a force in light of sustained funding challenges.”
Interestingly for 2024/25 the then Police and Crime Commissioner Mark Shelford, asked the Police and Crime Panel to support an increase of £13 a year in council tax to fund local policing. The increased precept level raised an additional £7.76 million.
Also noteworthy, the proposal followed an extensive survey. It asked participants how much extra they were willing to pay, did they have confidence in the police, what should policing priorities be?
The one question they were not asked, is would you pay more in precept if you knew the money would recruit more officers or PCSOs?
The current view of Avon & Somerset Police is: “PCSOs are valued frontline workers who make a crucial contribution to community policing. They work tirelessly to engage with our communities, identify problems and keep people safe.
“Our decision to reduce PCSO numbers was not one we took lightly. Having protected PCSO numbers for a sustained period, the scale of the funding challenges we faced meant this was no longer something we could afford.”
Bizarrely they have now undertaken a complete volte face and restarted PCSO recruitment. “Having taken this decision over 12 months ago, we have recently restarted recruitment on 8 January 2025. This will allow time for recruitment processes, vetting and training to take place before a new cohort joins us in the summer to maintain our numbers going forward.”
Avon & Somerset have told us the reductions in PCSO numbers were the result of natural attrition, i.e. job changes internally, retirement or resignation. They simply did not replace PCSOs as they left post to meet their budget targets.
Now recruitment has restarted, the numbers will no doubt start to climb once again.
More? Or less? 2
A big new brassy announcement from central Government this morning informed us that some 700,000 extra urgent dental appointments will be made available across the country.
The focus is on those areas perceived as dental deserts, where getting access to an NHS dentist is nigh on impossible. Happily Government seem to recognise that the South West is one of those areas.
The following ICBs in our patch will get extra urgent dental appointments:
Somerset ICB 13,498 extra appointments
Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire ICB 19,076
Bath and North East Somerset, Swindon and Wiltshire ICB 13,990
Some context is needed here. Somerset ICB serves around 560,000 people. Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire ICB serves just over 1 million and Bath and North East Somerset, Swindon and Wiltshire ICB 940,000.
Looking at the figures with reference to the population served, Somerset ICB appears to have the best per head deal of the three.
Those then are the numbers but what does it mean in practise? We are told that patients will be able to access these appointments by contacting their usual dental practice or calling NHS 111 if they don’t have a regular dentist or need help out-of-hours.
This is just the first step in a recovery plan. Stephen Kinnock, Minister of State for Care acknowledges as much: “We promised we would end the misery faced by hundreds of thousands of people unable to get urgent dental care. Today we’re starting to deliver on that commitment. “NHS dentistry has been left broken after years of neglect , with patients left in pain without appointments, or queueing around the block just to be seen.”
So far so good. But we wondered why there were no figures for funding attached to the announcement? We checked with the Department of Health and Social Care and they confirmed that there was no extra funding. ICBs are expected to fund the extra appointments from existing budgets.
ICBs are expected to fund the extra appointments from existing budgets
Which leads us to ask if this is really extra appointments. All that is happening we now know, is that the Department of Health and Social Care is writing to ICBs to tell them to implement this policy.
Which begs two questions:
If they have the funds, why were they not doing this already. And if they were doing this already will these actually be extra appointments?
And if they don’t have the funds, what other health services will suffer if money has to be taken from somewhere to fund extra dental appointments?
Making sense of that is enough to give you a headache, if not actual toothache.
To make it balance
It has been hard to avoid the fact that Somerset Council has been in financial meltdown. It’s not a secret. The council declared a financial emergency. Now they are scrambling to balance the books for 2025/26.
They asked government for permission to raise council tax by 7.5% instead of 5% and government said yes. All good so far then.
A meeting of the Executive was called on 19 February specifically to discuss the setting of the budget prior to it being put to full council. And then at the last moment it got cancelled. At least cancelled is the word they used on their website notice.
Could there be a more important meeting in the current lifecycle of the council? Could the council afford to council the meeting and still meet the timetable for submitting an agreed budget?
However there are reasons. The much heralded agreement by Government to allow Somerset to increase council tax by 7.5% will not bring in enough money to balance the books.
Government will need to assess the viability of allowing this to continue.
To achieve that the council will need approval for yet another “capitalisation directive.” This too is allowed only if it has government approval and they need to ask for another £43m for 2025/26. That’s even more than the £36.9m that they needed to ask for last year, a total of just a shade under £80m. Government will need to assess the viability of allowing this to continue.
A capitalisation directive is a bit of a complex concept. Organisations that have assets can borrow money against those assets. That’s pretty normal. The lender has the security of the assets to support the loan.
With a capitalisation directive, the council takes everyday spending, lumps it together and pretends it is a long term asset, and then borrows money against that packaged asset. The money that is borrowed is then used to balance the budget.
It is dare we say, a little like the way bad mortgages were packaged together and sold as financial instruments prior to the 2008 Financial Crash. And these capitalised assets are worth about as much.
And it is worth bearing in mind that for years to come Somerset Council will be paying interest on the money they borrow against these capitalised “assets” for many years to come. That’s currently 4-5% which equates to an annual cost of £3.2-£4m.
So why was the important Executive meeting cancelled? It wasn’t. A spokesperson for the council told us: “Meetings have been revised, not cancelled. This is because of ongoing discussions between Somerset Council and The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government regarding Exceptional Financial Support (EFS) from Government as part of the Council’s budget setting for 2025/26.
This is to allow time for negotiations over the capitalisation directive to continue. These discussions must conclude before any final decisions can be taken at Full Council on the budget proposals. Hence a revised meeting schedule.”
So a new timetable is now being worked on. The revised date for the Executive meeting is 26 February. This will be preceded by a Scrutiny and Resources meeting to discuss the budget on 24 February and then the final approval for the budget will be before the full council meeting of either 5 March or the 10 March. Somerset Council have very wisely decided on having a reserve date in case negotiations go down to the wire.
And the 10th of March will be very close to the wire because the deadline set by Government for budgets to be complete and approved is 11 March 2025.
Happier news for Watchet
Somerset Council have finally signed the 200-year lease over Watchet Marina they had been discussing for the past couple of years. As regular readers of Somerset Confidential® will know, negotiations were drawn out with previous lessee – The Marine and Property Group. But after promises to dredge failed to amount to much, large parts of the group went into administration, and suggestions of the arrival of new financing which then failed to materialise all contributed to delays and frustrations for the berth holders at the marina.
However it has taken less than six months of new owners Western Marinas being in charge to persuade Somerset Council to take the plunge. They have now signed a 200-year extension to the lease of Watchet Marina to Western Marinas up to 2225.
Speaking for the Council, Cllr Federica Smith Roberts, Lead Member for Communities, Housing and Culture, explains the change of heart: “We’ve been greatly encouraged by the progress being made in the short space of time since Western Marinas Ltd acquired the lease and are confident that they will continue to build on their success.”
There has indeed been a step change in the management of the marina. In a press release, Western marinas tell us they have:
Conducted a comprehensive health and safety review
Installed new fire extinguishers and smoke detectors.
Reinstated the gas supply and installed a new fuel tank.
Refitted the pontoon.
Undertaken a dredging programme which has so far successfully removed around 26,000m³ of sediment from the marina. A further 7,000m³ remains to be cleared from the far end before the season begins.
They also say that work is progressing on repairs to the marina gate.
Over the years, marina boat owners and Watchet businesses have grown used to hearing grand statements from the marina owner though.
So the key test for the new owners is what both the marina berth holders and other people around Watchet think. If what Martin Stevens of Watchet Boat Owners Association is anything to go by, that’s not a problem either: “The berth holders at Watchet are delighted with the progress being made in the rehabilitation of Watchet Marina by Western Marinas whose refreshingly honest and realistic approach has been welcomed by all. It is true to say the company has delivered a staggeringly successful dredging campaign in a very short time without making undeliverable promises to a very sceptical audience”.
“At last someone putting their money where their mouth is.”
These remarks were backed up by a number of local people and boat owners on social media. Loretta Whetlor summed up the positive mood noting: “At last someone putting their money where their mouth is. Thank you Western Marinas Ltd. Looking forward to what you do next!”
It is a much happier return to Somerset for the Chair of Western Marinas, Andrew Cornish. Previously the CEO of Somerset County Cricket Club, the Club announced on 23 August 2019 that “the Club have taken the decision to terminate Andrew Cornish’s term of employment.” Mr Cornish subsequently took the Council to a tribunal, but the hearing was dismissed when Mr Cornish withdrew his claim.
Still the good folks of Watchet, both on the water and off it, will happily overlook all of that if he continues to bring their marina back to life.
Watchers of the sky
We cannot say if the intrepid group of Somerset Levels Stargazers have the words of John Keats at their heart (or even Homer for that matter). His words: “Then felt I like some watcher of the skies. When a new planet swims into his ken” seem somehow apposite.
If those words inspire you too and you’ve often looked to the heavens wishing you could identify more than Orion or the Plough, then set aside the evening of Tuesday 25 February and head to Middlezoy.
Working on this occasion with CPRE Somerset, the Somerset Levels Stargazers meet at 7.30pm at Middlezoy Village Hall and will have telescopes ready to welcome you. They can talk you through the various things you can see in the night sky, as well as showing you some of the things you might not see so easily without a telescope.
And as a bit of a bonus Josh Drury, the Mendip based Award-Winning Landscape Astrophotographer (he’s also an accomplished presenter and speaker), will be on hand to talk to you and talk about the trials and tribulations of getting photos of the night sky just right.
Keep everything crossed for a clear night! The evening is free, there’s no need to book. Participants of any age are very welcome, but please note that children must be accompanied by an adult. Remember it is still February so it’s a good idea to dress warmly and bear in mind the ground may be wet and muddy. Refreshments will be available on the evening.
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The new parking policies (really new charges) report is going to Scrutiny Committee on Monday (24 Feb) and then Executive on 3 March (not 26 Feb) and then it’s due to go to full council on 5 March as part of the budget. It’s important to note that the net income is included in the proposed budget and financial plan, so then becomes baked in, despite any consultation that follows, that at best can only look at small changes and will still need the saving to the council from the new charges. If agreed, these will cause big problems in Wiveliscombe and Milverton, where parking is currently free and used by many residents, who have no parking at their homes and no alternative, but to add to the many existing problems from parking on-street. Other areas may be similarly impacted by unintended consequences that are not covered in the council report. Some of us are and will be raising these.
Hi Andrew. Mary Portas' conclusion that there should be free parking for town centres was deeply flawed, and something we see from retail representatives whenever parking is raised as an issue. Better surely to look at the hard evidence of the true cost of free parking to society, best shown by the work of Professor Donald Shoup. His work over many decades has shown that there is a high cost to free parking, and that actually market mechanisms are far more effective at ensuring parking is priced appropriately, matching supply and demand. Now, of course the council is NOT proposing to use that evidence, so every year we have the nonsensical approach of taking existing prices and adding a percentage, without any understanding of the demand at each car park by day and hour. So, we have car parks where demand clearly exceeds supply most of the time, such as The Crescent in Taunton, which means the parking there is underpriced. Meanwhile Tangier car park is underused most of the time, which tells you it is overpriced. The differential is so small that many drivers would ratehr sit and wait for a space at The Crescent than walk a bit further from Tangier. Shoup would advocate that you do the work to understand demand, then price accordingly, adjusting prices every six months, up or down, according to usage. The sweet spot is where pricing means drivers arriving will find at least one or two spots available on arrival with no queuing/waiting for spaces.
It shouldn't be a "political" decision at all to set parking prices. Use market mechanisms. Of course if you have some car parks which are then shown to be routinely underutilised, then it makes sense to use them for something else, such as housing.
Prof Shoup, recently deceased, was working in the USA where over provision of free parking is a much bigger problem than here. But the principles of applying market pricing apply everywhere, and in many countries his ideas are taking root. Drivers pay the market price for their car and fuel, tyres, servicing etc. Why should parking be different? Why should non-drivers subsidise the transport choices of drivers, especially as they undermine the viability of the alternatives?