Warden Watch

Car parking was the third big issue to be discussed in last Monday's Council meeting.
The revenue from car parks across the county was down by 18% this year, and to put that into context, Hay car park alone raised a total of £140,000 last year. That's 15% of the total car parking revenue for the county - and Powys is a big county, so that's quite a big contribution from a small place, even if we are popular with tourists.
The town council asked someone from the County Council to come and talk to them about car parking - and they're still waiting....
They asked about the number of parking tickets that had been given out across the county, and they did get an answer for this one. 6,255 parking tickets have been issued. 643 of those were in Hay. The only place where more parking tickets were issued was Brecon. 210 of those tickets were issued in the car park, and 433 on the streets.
Across the county, the income from fines was £139,829, of which £22,505 came from Hay, which works out at £15 per head of the population.
It would appear from the figures that Hay is being targeted for parking tickets over places like Builth Wells and Llandrindod Wells. There have also been complaints that Hay is being disproportionately targeted in the mornings, after which the officials who give out the tickets move on elsewhere.
So small posters have started appearing in windows along the roads where the traffic wardens tend to go. Titled "Warden Watch", they ask anyone who sees a traffic warden to warn other motorists along the road so that they can move their cars before the warden gets there.