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Booked in the Town of Books

In an obvious effort to encourage commerce and tourism, Powys County Council, recently successful in their application to take over Civil Parking Enforcement (CPE) from Dyfed-Powys Police, have recruited ten new Civil Enforcement Officers (CEOs) to police parking throughout the county.

Residents of Hay-on-Wye, ‘the town of books’, an attractive and historic town situated right on the border with England and famous for its thirty book shops, are fearful that the real reason behind the new enforcement proposals is to further the council’s Strategy Objectives of ‘restraining car use’ and ‘achieving a reduction in overall traffic’. Hay, thirty miles from motorway access and twenty miles from the nearest railway station is heavily reliant on tourism

Denizens of this small border town of 1600 people view this coming month with trepidation. The forthcoming May Fair will take over half the already inadequate town centre car park and it is anticipated the Hay Literary Festival will attract some 200,000 visitors. Particularly feared is the prospect of residents competing with visitors crowding their cars into the town’s few unrestricted parking streets or being forced the few metres across the border into England where no traffic restrictions apply.

So determined are cash strapped Powys County Council to pursue their policy of Civil Parking Enforcement, that despite vociferous local opposition and the pleas of local politicians for a residents’ parking policy, they have spent over £19,000 on consultants to advise on implementing the scheme which will generate a ‘modest’ £20,000 p.a. surplus revenue ‘from on-street penalty charges’.

Officers responsible for introducing this Kafkaesque policy are confident that it will prove so unsuccessful in discouraging irregular parking, that resulting fines and fees will be sufficient to meet all its costs, and raise the anticipated excess!

Liberal Democrat MP Roger Williams and Kirsty Williams past Assembly member and Liberal Democrat candidate in the forthcoming Assemble election, stated that 'the county council should not enforce the restrictions more tightly ‘without a thorough review of parking restrictions’; Conservative AM candidate Chris Davies is ‘completely against the proposals’ by Powys County Council and Gary Price, Plaid Cymru AM candidate believes and it ‘was unfortunate that the scheme had been introduced with little consultation’.

Despite this cross party condemnation, and local councillor Gareth Ratcliff’s vociferous support for a halt to the ill advised scheme, Powys County Council is determined to pursue the new parking enforcement policy. Officers have stated that whilst the police were able to use discretion, it is incumbent upon the council to enforce their newly secured powers vigorously.

Hay locals, who have happily lived with sensible local police enforcement of largely outdated parking restrictions in the town, are sufficiently incensed by the lack of consultation and repercussions of enforcement of these potentially draconian and largely unnecessary measures and the council’s statement that because of budget restrictions no changes can be considered for at least a year; that a Campaign for a Responsible Approach to Parking has been started in an attempt to make the council see sense.

So the best advice from CRAP is that if you plan to visit Hay in the near future, keep your eyes peeled for the newly appointed and smartly uniformed CEOs enforcing Powys’s new CPE and watch out where you park!