Car parks will cost £200,000

Some of Stafford's car parks need thousands of pounds worth of work doing on them to bring them up to standard, members of the town's cabinet have been told.

Resources member Councillor Mike Heenan was explaining the need to set aside nearly £200,000 for car park maintenance over the next three years.

"We are not planning on spending money on every car park. It is just the high usage ones that need the work doing," he told yesterday's meeting.

The major car park projects include £66,000 on resurfacing at the Kingsmead short stay and £52,000 at Broad Street.

Councillor Heenan added that more than £1 million would need to be spent on maintenance of the council's buildings over the same period.

The work would include measures to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from buildings and forms part of the council's overall capital programme.

"The buildings are not in bad nick, but we must keep everything up to standard," said Councillor Heenan.

His report to the cabinet showed that much of the repair work involves wall, floor and ceiling finishes which have reached the end of their useful life and there was little evidence of major problems with the fabric.

Major projects include spending £150,000 in 2009-2010 on boiler refurbishment for the Gatehouse Theatre and £75,000 on a smoke and intruder alarm system for St John's Market in Stafford.

Maintenance work totalling more than £130,000 is programmed for the recently opened Stafford Leisure Centre over the next three years, including £36,000 for mechanical and electrical servicing.