£913,000 bill to repair Taunton multi-storey (From Somerset County Gazette)

What a non story, and half researched at that. So it's actually about £200k a year, but no clue in the story as to the income from parking fees. The real issue is whether the car park is self financing or not.
But the Deane need to be more business like. Instead of putting the income in to the wider council budgets then allocating some (apparently not enough) to the car park, they should run it as a self financing project from the income, and THEN put the surplus in to the wider pot. It really is quite straightforward.

mansell5 wrote:
What a non story, and half researched at that. So it's actually about £200k a year, but no clue in the story as to the income from parking fees. The real issue is whether the car park is self financing or not.
But the Deane need to be more business like. Instead of putting the income in to the wider council budgets then allocating some (apparently not enough) to the car park, they should run it as a self financing project from the income, and THEN put the surplus in to the wider pot. It really is quite straightforward.

Spot on mansell5. Just don't ever consider a career in politics with sensible policies like those. You'll never get voted in. One has to learn how to acknowledge babies in pushchairs, attend banquets quaff champagne and open supermarkets. Not come up with sensible use of taxpayers money.

With comments like that you two will surely have them removed by the biased and butt kissing managers at the rag that is SCG, after all the truth hurts and TDBC and SCC are totally opposed to that.
Well said both comments.

Oh joy, when the work is being done, yet another car park will be closed for a while or they wont replace it and it will be a 3 storey tesco. Bring back in shops underneath it.

That's has to win an award for the crappest journalism ever and also the most pointless county council assessment ever. All structures require upkeep and now of this seems out of order. If you assume every space is only used once a days the building covers its costs and provides a profit. Add to this the fact it facilitates revenue for the entire town centre then basic maintenance is not a problem.

What next?! A report on how you need to put cash in cashpoints so it can come out again?!

The gazette seems to get worse every week, at least there aren't too many spelling mistakes in this article for a change!!!

I wonder about this as they have deployed the camera partnerships vans down by the premier inn/ blackbrook in early hours of sunday mornings to get motorists twice once with the static camera at junction of stoke rd & by the premier inn by hiding behind bushes these vans park on the wrong of the road by doing so their reading can be wrong and Taunton deane council / Avonandsomerset police need to sort this otherwise they may get same with problem as Wiltshire police in to by placing to many cameras along a duel carriage way on A303 it almost bankrupt them & council to had to give the money back to drivers and to clear point off their licences. this may be off topic but back in 2005/6 one these vans parked on the private drive of the leader of Taunton Deane councillor property in Monkton Heathfield. Avon&somerset police are therfore guilty of entrapment by allowing this double whammie on A358, the 1 million should spent on put their up to a safe standard & less speed cameras its not the speed that kills its the potholes & unleven road surrfaces that kill? These vans be only parked where is highly visiable & left side of A358 for traffic coming from Thornfalcon lights & the right side for traffic coming off the M5 and not otherway round this is need of being sort out! I have posted on tripadviser to warn motorist to beware of the these vans that are out after their wallets and by pass somerset full stop.

qasha18

What has your rant got to do with the Car Park?

My rant is simple the monies that come these cashcows will be used for the refurb of this car park and not for what it is meant for road repairs ie the pot holes & unleven surrfaces? Taunton has become a nightmare for the motorists what with loads of traffic lights and hidden camera vans around every corner? these cashcows are nothing to do with road safely? the £900.000 + should therefore be spent upgradeing our roads full stop? these car parks have cashcow unit so why are the monies from these not used to upgrade & not tax payers money!!!!!!!!!

I'm a bit confused at to the relevance of Qasha's post but I fully agree with it though! I bet the scamera van is parked at Henlade now catching unsuspecting motorists, where a few 30mph signs would suffice. Hold on! That's too simple.

Oh for goodness sake, one tries to have a reasonable debate and it gets hijacked by ill informed off topic ranters.
The cameras are not operated by TDBC, and the income from them is recycled back in to road safety measures.
The car parks are operated by TDBC and generate income for car parks and other TDBC measures. If the income did not come in then council tax would rise. It's very simple; the user pays.
Potholes etc are the responsibility of SCC, who have entirely separate budgets to TDBC.
Funnily enough the last sentence of qasha18's post is repeating what I said in my original post!

qasha18 seems to like typing the word cashcow.

Just to clear up the confusion for everyone
1.There are no working fixed speed camera sites in Somerset only traffic signal cameras.
2. The safety camera partnership know longer exists.
3. The mobile camera vans are funded and operated by A&S Constabulary who are allowed to recoup their operating costs from the fines.

Why is the structure not self financing ?

I can't understand tdbc insist on closing car parks that must generate revenue. Then they put the prices up refuse pass on vat savings etc.

We didnt need a second park and ride/ part time traveller settlement. I have yet to see evidence that the existing one is ever at capacity.

Waste millions and then moan they dont have enough money to meet their existing comitments really how do the councilors and management sleep at night. I notice they have rebranded the civil enforcement officers with new red uniforms which probably involved colin ports wifes consultancy services at a cost £100k for a weeks work for them to come up with red uniform. They are not the green meanies now, they are the red robbers.

I

@ freespeech

you need to take a look at A&S camera web site and you see as to where this van parks so it means motorist get caught twice once by Falcon Hotel / stoke road & then down Blackbrook Tavern? a double whammie!!!!! for the already poor motorist and means A&S collect £120 or if you take the speed awareness course @£95 then insuranace/ fuel on top it mounts up. by the way the camera by stoke road is a fixed unit ok, The word cash cow is term for police collecting money from fines? & many other things?

qasha18 wrote:
@ freespeech

you need to take a look at A&S camera web site and you see as to where this van parks so it means motorist get caught twice once by Falcon Hotel / stoke road & then down Blackbrook Tavern? a double whammie!!!!! for the already poor motorist and means A&S collect £120 or if you take the speed awareness course @£95 then insuranace/ fuel on top it mounts up. by the way the camera by stoke road is a fixed unit ok, The word cash cow is term for police collecting money from fines? & many other things?

It's really not difficult. If you don't want to pay a fine, don't commit the crime.

51 people were killed or seriously injured in the A & S area last year in crashes where speed was a factor.

If just one life is saved then all the cash cowing is worth it. Just as the families of the victims.

And yes there is a fixed unit at Stoke Road, and at Henlade, but they are not in active use - exactly as FreeSpeech said.

mansell5 wrote:

qasha18 wrote: @ freespeech you need to take a look at A&S camera web site and you see as to where this van parks so it means motorist get caught twice once by Falcon Hotel / stoke road & then down Blackbrook Tavern? a double whammie!!!!! for the already poor motorist and means A&S collect £120 or if you take the speed awareness course @£95 then insuranace/ fuel on top it mounts up. by the way the camera by stoke road is a fixed unit ok, The word cash cow is term for police collecting money from fines? & many other things?

It's really not difficult. If you don't want to pay a fine, don't commit the crime. 51 people were killed or seriously injured in the A & S area last year in crashes where speed was a factor. If just one life is saved then all the cash cowing is worth it. Just as the families of the victims. And yes there is a fixed unit at Stoke Road, and at Henlade, but they are not in active use - exactly as FreeSpeech said.

The clue is in the lack of road markings used to calculate the speed from the pictures taken. The markings have been missing since it was resurfaced.

The road from the motorway to where the road returns to single carriageway should be set at 40 but until then its 30.

swjoduk wrote:

mansell5 wrote:

qasha18 wrote: @ freespeech you need to take a look at A&S camera web site and you see as to where this van parks so it means motorist get caught twice once by Falcon Hotel / stoke road & then down Blackbrook Tavern? a double whammie!!!!! for the already poor motorist and means A&S collect £120 or if you take the speed awareness course @£95 then insuranace/ fuel on top it mounts up. by the way the camera by stoke road is a fixed unit ok, The word cash cow is term for police collecting money from fines? & many other things?

It's really not difficult. If you don't want to pay a fine, don't commit the crime. 51 people were killed or seriously injured in the A & S area last year in crashes where speed was a factor. If just one life is saved then all the cash cowing is worth it. Just as the families of the victims. And yes there is a fixed unit at Stoke Road, and at Henlade, but they are not in active use - exactly as FreeSpeech said.

The clue is in the lack of road markings used to calculate the speed from the pictures taken. The markings have been missing since it was resurfaced. The road from the motorway to where the road returns to single carriageway should be set at 40 but until then its 30.

Yep they need the markings in order to perform a secondary check if they arent there the ticket is not valid but you need to challenge it. They will still try it on.

mansell5 wrote:

qasha18 wrote: @ freespeech you need to take a look at A&S camera web site and you see as to where this van parks so it means motorist get caught twice once by Falcon Hotel / stoke road & then down Blackbrook Tavern? a double whammie!!!!! for the already poor motorist and means A&S collect £120 or if you take the speed awareness course @£95 then insuranace/ fuel on top it mounts up. by the way the camera by stoke road is a fixed unit ok, The word cash cow is term for police collecting money from fines? & many other things?

It's really not difficult. If you don't want to pay a fine, don't commit the crime. 51 people were killed or seriously injured in the A & S area last year in crashes where speed was a factor. If just one life is saved then all the cash cowing is worth it. Just as the families of the victims. And yes there is a fixed unit at Stoke Road, and at Henlade, but they are not in active use - exactly as FreeSpeech said.

Speed is about the main contributing factor in around 6% of accidents.

Take the Amy Hofmiester crash as an example a speed camera would of done very little when you have:

> Unlicenced driver
> Uinsured driver
> Disqualified Driver
>Over the drink driver limit
> Vehicle was not registered to driver

A speed camera would of made little of no difference. We need better education and more traffic police. Speed cameras generally only catch legimate drivers who have drifted over the limit. The are a blunt instrument that mostly make revenue for the government.