A SENIOR councillor has accused another of being misleading.

Wrexham Council’s Lead Member for Environment and a Transport, Councillor David A Bithell, has accused Gwersyllt Councillor Gwenfair Jones of pushing “misleading information” about the drop in visitors to a country park.

Last week it was confirmed number of visitors to Alyn Waters has dropped significantly since the introduction of car parking fees in May of last year.

In the eight months from April to November 2018, the number of visitors to Alyn Waters was just 11,189, down from the 19,658 recorded for a nine month period the year before.

The figures were disclosed at a meeting of Gwersyllt Community Council, which also revealed the number of cars using the car park was just 6,013, lower than the 11,933 recorded the previous year.

Cllr Jones said the figures, which were obtained from Wrexham Council, were a real concern and while she and other community councillors expected the figures to be lower this year, were shocked because they were much lower than anticipated.

But lead member, Cllr Bithell said claims parking charges had caused a decrease are ‘misleading’ as visitor numbers had been falling before their introduction.

He said: “The overall level of visitors to our parks are on target in line with our council plan presented to the Executive Board in December.

“The actual figures for quarter one and two figure is 283,000 against a target of 500,000.

“This shows that we are on track for visitor numbers across all our parks, not just Alyn Waters.”