Wandsworth admits an overspend of £2m in the transport budget

By Charlotte Lillywhite, Local Democracy Reporter

A council is predicting an overspend of almost £2m on its transport budget after handing out fewer parking fines than expected and residents using their cars less.

Wandsworth council said the expected shortfall in parking income was mainly driven by Covid, the cost-of-living crisis and delays in installing enforcement cameras to catch drivers breaking the rules.

The council is also planning to hike parking charges by up to seven per cent from June after the changes were green-lit on Wednesday.

A fresh council report said the net budget for the transport committee was £8.79m, but the forecast outturn is expected to be £6.75m for the 2022/23 financial year – leading to an expected overspend of £1.98m.

The report said the remaining Covid contingency budget of £434,000 would be allocated to the committee to reduce the overspend to £1.5m, while ongoing pressures would be considered further in the report setting council tax.

The expected overspend is mainly from income shortfalls in parking services along with overspends in development management and policy and design, according to the report.

It says the forecast parking income for 2022/23 is expected to be below budget by more than £1m – £707,000 of this shortfall from on-street income and £940,000 from penalty charge notices.

The report says income loss from the strikes is estimated to be around £300,000.

It adds that “existing trends for reduced car usage and remote working” were accelerated by Covid while “rapid increases in petrol cost particularly alongside significant economic pressures upon household resources has, and will continue to, drive a reduction in overall car usage as residents and visitors seek to manage expenditure”.

Alex Moylan, head of finance, told the transport committee on Wednesday an update will be brought to the next committee on actions the authority has taken to bring the budget “back into alignment”.

Labour councillor Annamarie Critchard said: “Overall as one of our aims is to reduce car usage, we are happy that the car usage is reducing, and obviously there’s an issue because we were expecting more income.”

She said the authority needed to “keep a very close eye on the budget this year”. 

The executive will make the final decision on February 13.

Pictured top: Wandsworth town hall (Picture: Google Street View)