Cornwall Council to tighten parking scheme

The council said it is trying to reform the free parking system

More than 200 Cornwall Council staff and elected councillors have special passes which allow them free parking in council-owned car parks, BBC Cornwall has learned.

The council said there was no evidence the passes had been abused but added that the system was being tightened up

It runs four different pre-paid car parking regimes.

It said this avoided having to process hundreds of parking claims for those on council business.

More than 100 Cornwall Council staff, and all 123 elected councillors, have the passes.

Two of the schemes are securely linked to specific vehicles, but one is a "pool" scheme, providing a permit for any vehicle.

The fourth is a hangover from the former district councils, which were abolished more than two years ago.

The council said it had been trying to identify how many of the old parking permits were still in circulation and which members of staff could still be using them.

Cornwall Council's community transport manager, Peter Moore, said: "None of these passes are available for private use. They are only for use when people are on duty."

Mr Moore insisted there was no evidence the passes had been abused but added that the system was being reviewed.

He said: "We are going to move to a system whereby staff use mobile phones to pay for the parking.

"That is immediately charged back to the individual's department. Then we have a complete computer record who parked where or when."