“Parking
Charge Victory”
As one of
the organisers of the “Stop the Parking Tax” campaign in Denton Holme, I am
very pleased to learn that Cumbria County Council has put on hold its plans to
charge for residents’ parking permits, and I would like to thank everyone who
supported the campaign. But I do not
think we can be complacent at achieving what the News & Star (18 November 2014) calls “Parking Charge Victory”.
The Council
has not abandoned its proposals, merely deferred implementing them until it has
sorted out some legal or procedural problems, which Councillor Little says may
take 12-18 months. Council Leader
Stewart Young also does not say the proposals have been scrapped, only that
there will need to be “further public consultation” before they are brought
back.
He now says
“Having asked local people for their views on these matters, we must listen to
them.” Does he think that the public
will have different views if the Council decides to “consult” them again in a
year’s time? And why did the Council not
listen to the public during the last round of consultation on the budget? The
Council claimed that 58% of “people” supported charging for residents’ parking
permits and only 26% disagreed. But only
a small proportion of the people of Cumbria voted in that consultation, and
most of those who did, almost certainly did not live in residential parking zones. In the same consultation, the Council admits
that more people voted against town centre parking charges than for them, but
the Council added those who did not vote to those who were in favour, and
declared that the majority were not opposed to the charges.
Councillor Young and his colleagues
only “listen” to the people when it suits them, and they distort the results of
consultation to support their own plans.
John Stevenson MP claims this shows “how out of touch the Labour-run
Council have become. I do not think the
politicians are speaking to people.”
This is rich coming from him. The
County Council is now a Labour-Liberal Democrat coalition, but it was previously
a Conservative-Labour coalition, and both regimes claimed they had to make cuts
and impose charges because of orders from the national government – a
Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition, elected by absolutely no one!
The Council’s retreat on these
charges is indeed an achievement for “People Power” (as your editorial states),
but the only way to
ensure that the Council does not impose the charges at a later date would be to
elect councillors who will really represent the people of Cumbria, who are prepared to fight for the resources
which the county needs to provide the services which the public has a right to
expect – councillors who will oppose central government’s austerity programme
and refuse to implement all of the cuts in jobs and services. None of the existing political parties offer
candidates pledged to fight for the people, so we have to look for alternatives
from within our own local communities.
The Council’s “U-turn” is only a
tactical retreat. The people may have
won the first round, but the fight is by no means over, so let us keep up the
attack.
Grahame
Higginson, Denton Holme, Carlisle
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