Er, no. The councillors raising their concerns were the town councillors, and what Ivor thinks about this or anything else is destined to remain a mystery.
What is upsetting people in Llandovery and every other market town in Carmarthenshire is the annual, inflation-busting increases in the cost of the car parking ticket you need to buy if you want to go to your local shops to buy a newspaper and a loaf of bread. The minimum charge is now 70p.
Llandovery's town councillors would like the county council to hand over the Castle car park, and they are going to write a strongly worded letter to the chief executive, Mark James. Good luck with that.
One of the town councillors mentioned the county council's Community Asset Transfer Programme.
Those warm-sounding words give the impression that those kind-hearted souls in County Hall want to shower us all with goodies, and the council's own official policy document kicks off on a promising note:
"Carmarthenshire County Council believes that community asset transfer is about giving local people greater control in the future of their area and their community."
The problem is that they only want to transfer liabilities, such as public toilets and playing fields, which will land community councils and other organisations with big bills.
In Newcastle Emlyn the Town Council has tried on more than one occasion to persuade the county council to hand over control of the town's car parks, but as councillors have discovered, the car parks are making a lot of money and they are not up for grabs.
A better solution for Llandovery, Newcastle Emlyn, Ammanford and other communities would be to have control of their car parks as well. They would then be free to set their own charges and use the revenue to fund local amenities such as toilets and recreation spaces.
While they are at it, the county's community and town councils might want to take a peak at the massive pot of gold which has been accumulating in the coffers of County Hall in the form of unspent Section 106 contributions. This money is meant to go to community schools and improve local amenities, but doesn't seem to want to leave Jail Hill, as you can see from this Freedom of Information request.
And finally...
The Carmarthen Journal has come in for quite a bit of stick on this blog, but this week it has redeemed itself somewhat with this.
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