The SNP's £22m car park

As part of their budget proposals earlier this week the SNP Group proposed that the Council should build a multi-storey car park in Cathcart Street at an estimated cost of £10m as their solution to parking issues in Greenock Town Centre.

I am not sure which member of the SNP Group came up with this bright idea - although I could hazard a guess - but even the Lib Dems thought it was bonkers.


Mind you I can exclusively reveal that if the SNP had got their way the actual cost of the car park to Council taxpayers could have been £22m!


Under the SNP's proposals the Council would have borrowed the £10m it would cost to build the car park and repaid it over 20 years at £800,000 a year. This gives a total funding cost of £16m (i.e £10m capital and £6m interest).


On top of that you would have to add the running costs of the car park (e.g. maintenance, staffing, cleaning, electricity). Officers have estimated these at around £300,000 a year or £6m over 20 years at today's prices (i.e. not taking into account inflation).


What about the income from parking charges I hear you ask: will that not offset the costs?


Well no, in their generosity with Council taxpayers' money the SNP were proposing to make the car park free.


Even if the Council had £1.1m a year to spare - and we don't given the estimated £28m funding gap we face over the next few years - I could think of other things I would rather spend it on, like accelerating our schools estate programme for example.


It was the great Welsh socialist Aneurin Bevan that said "politics is the language of priorities".


I am afraid that on this one the SNP Councillors have got their priorities all wrong.