Carmarthenshire's council car parks are getting a free first hour, but nobody has said when it starts

Carmarthenshire County Council's Cabinet agreed on Monday 7 September to give drivers one hour of free parking at all 67 council car parks. Twenty-six of those are free already, so the change reaches the 41 that charge. It is not in force: the council has published no date for it to start, and the tariffs need new legal orders first. Behind the free hour sits a higher and simpler tariff, and the council's own modelling shows what that trade is worth. The free hour is priced at minus £158,622 a year. The tariff change is worth plus £247,354.64, ending the existing free parking periods plus £78,008, and taking back the town council free days plus £32,891.67, the last of those a Cover subtraction from the council's two totals rather than a line the council prices itself. So for every £1 the free hour hands back to drivers, the package takes £2.26 back from drivers, and the council finishes £199,632.31 a year up. Those figures are modelled on ten of the 41 car parks that charge, in Carmarthen, Llanelli and Ammanford, and give an average year of the three the review modelled. Only the tariff element is modelled across three years, falling from £330,224 in year one to £164,486 in year three; the other three components are single-year estimates carried flat, so on Cover's arithmetic the net gain falls from about £282,500 in year one to about £116,800 in year three. The review builds that decline on annual inflation uplifts and on demand falling 15 per cent in the first year, 10 in the second and 5 in the third, and calls the exercise a sensitivity test that does not represent a forecast.

What it will cost to park

The first hour is free everywhere under the tariff Cabinet adopted, and the prices below are what a driver pays for the whole stay, the free hour included. Carmarthen and Llanelli sit on one price list, Ammanford and the rural towns on a cheaper one, and the table below carries both in full. The council says the new fees will stay frozen for three years. At present most pay and display car parks in the county charge between 08:00 and 18:00, and car parks serving leisure sites are generally chargeable at all times. What those prices replace is in the council's own review. Today an hour costs £0.70 at St Peters in Carmarthen, £1.40 in Llanelli and £0.90 in Ammanford, Llandeilo, Llandovery, Newcastle Emlyn and St Clears. All day costs £2.50 in the Carmarthen long stay bays and £1.80 at Priory Street, £2.40 in most Llanelli car parks and £1.90 at Thomas and Edgar Street, and £1.70 in the rural towns. So the first hour falls to nothing and the all-day price rises: to £4 in Carmarthen and Llanelli, to £2.50 in the rural towns. Four hours in Ammanford goes from £1.20 to £2, and four hours in Llanelli from £2.20 to £4, the steepest rise on the new list.

The free days Cabinet took away

Cabinet also removed the town council free parking days, up to five a year for each town council. Town and community councils are a separate and smaller tier of local government from Carmarthenshire County Council, and those days let each of those councils open the county's car parks without charge a handful of times a year. The council's Place, Sustainability and Climate Change scrutiny committee, which reviews proposals and recommends but does not decide, considered the strategy on 23 July and resolved to recommend four things to Cabinet: a simplified tariff with a reduction for rural areas, one hour of free parking, an end to the existing free parking periods, and retention of the town council free days. It separately recommended that the strategy be shared with affected town and community councils for consultation. The council's announcement of the 7 September decision confirms the free hour, the new tariffs, and that the free town council parking days will be removed.

The free periods that are due to end

The existing free parking periods, which the report in front of Cabinet recommended ending, are set out in the review. In Carmarthen the council's short stay car parks are free on Tuesdays and Thursdays between 15:30 and 18:00. In Llanelli the short stay car parks are free on Mondays and Tuesdays between 10:00 and 16:00. In Ammanford, Llandeilo, Llandovery, Newcastle Emlyn and St Clears the short stay car parks are free on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays between 10:00 and 14:00. A driver still takes a pay and display ticket at those times; it is issued at no charge. The review says the offer was introduced in 2018. The council's own car parks page still calls it a new pilot, and still lists the free periods and the old prices as though nothing had been decided.

What the council's own evidence found

AtkinsRéalis, the consultancy the council commissioned to write the strategy, surveyed ten car parks in Ammanford, Carmarthen and Llanelli over one-week periods in July and August 2025, reading footfall, ticket sales, enforcement records and number plate cameras. It found that the free parking periods running since 2018 had little or no measurable effect on footfall, meaning the number of people coming into the town centres.

Cllr Edward Thomas, the Cabinet member for transport, waste and infrastructure services, said the approach "recognises the important role that our town centres play in the local economy".

What the council has not said

The council has not published a date for the new tariffs to start. Its summary report says the changes need new or amended off-street parking Orders, the legal instruments that set what a council car park may charge, before the tariffs can take effect, and no start date appears in that report, in the 18-page parking review or in the council's announcement. The council's constitution gives councillors a call in window of five clear working days, the period in which they can ask for a decision to be looked at again, but it runs from the day the decision is published, and the decision has not been published: the 7 September Cabinet page still carries an agenda and no minutes. The council's live car parks page was last updated on 20 July 2026 and still advertises a town council free day in Llandovery on Saturday 19 September, twelve days after Cabinet voted those days away, with nothing to say whether that one survives. The council has not published what its car parks take in total now, so there is no way to say what share of its parking income £199,632 represents. And the minutes of the 7 September meeting are not published, so what Cabinet decided about ending the existing free parking periods, which the report in front of Cabinet recommended, is not yet on the record.

Correction, 9 September 2026: an earlier version said the modelled gain shrinks from £330,224 in year one to £164,486 in year three. That range is the tariff element alone. The net gain falls from about £282,500 to about £116,800.

Correction, 9 September 2026: an earlier version said no call in window had been published. The council's constitution sets one of five clear working days, running from publication of the decision, which the council has not published.

Correction, 9 September 2026: an earlier version gave the Carmarthen all-day price as £2.50 without saying that Priory Street charges £1.80, and said the modelling covered ten of all 67 car parks rather than ten of the 41 that charge.