THE chairman of Tavistock's Parking Focus Group this week urged a rethink regarding a decision to shelve a plan to create a new car park in the town.

Cllr Roy Connelly, a borough and county member, said car parking was 'at crisis point' in Tavistock. He criticised the town council's decision not to develop land it owns in Pixon Lane as a car park.

Cllr Connelly said: 'The town council has decided to defer the Pixon Lane project. Was this another way of saying, "We don't know what to do so we will sit on the fence and do nothing"?

'One councillor stated that the possibility of the future creation of a unitary authority was a valid reason for doing nothing. However, responsible councils and councillors elsewhere are unified in stating that all councils contemplating such work programmes should continue — without such conviction tentative councils will end up doing nothing, and appear to prefer to leave it to others to sort out.

'Why has the town council left it until the twelfth hour to decide that the proposed car park would run at a loss and not generate sufficient income for the council? After all, discussions have been ongoing for about four years.'

Cllr Connelly said the town council had been running its major community facility, the town hall, at a significant loss, despite the hard work and dedication shown by its staff.

He said the council was satisfied to subsidise these losses on the understanding that the facility was providing a valuable service to the community.

'Given Tavistock's growing parking problem, surely, the proposed Pixon Lane car park falls into the same category of value to the community?' said Cllr Connelly.

'Car parking in Tavistock is at crisis point, despite the many good initiatives to encourage people to be less reliant on their cars.

'The lack of rural public transport, the planned increase in housing numbers and the need to support and protect the economic viability of our market town by increasing visitor numbers, highlights the council's responsibility to make this major contribution to ensure the economic future of the town,' Cllr Connelly said.

The town council decided to shelve the car park project last month, after it was revealed that even if it was fully utilised, it would have to be heavily subsidised each and every year.

Cllr Harry Smith, chairman of the town's finance committee, said: 'The project at Pixon Lane has developed over a considerable period of time. At every stage I have been aware of the cost to the council. Recently we had reached the point where the council would have moved to major spending on the site. The council decided not to go ahead at this point, but the work carried out so far will be of value if the scheme goes ahead in the future.

'As chairman of finance I have worked, with my colleagues, to ensure that every item of expenditure is fully justified, including the management of our property portfolio. This year has presented special challenges and I believe agreeing a budget resulting in only a small increase to Tavistock's council tax payers is the way forward.'

Mayor of Tavistock Cllr Robin Pike said: 'The council made a decision to defer the Pixon Lane project since it appeared it would never pay for itself and would cost between £25,000 and £37,000 a year as a subsidy from the taxpayer.

'As the Abbey Rise car park, closer and not even up a steep hill, only has some 65% occupancy it was not clear Pixon Lane would be used. It would only break even on £2.75 a day, which is 75p more than Abbey Rise.

'Pixon Lane is free now yet only three or four cars ever park there — we also have to make provision for cattle market use all year.'