What has Cumbria County Council got against Whitehaven ?
I did not think the idiotic proposal from Labour and Lib/Dem county councillors in Cumbria to hammer our town centres with onstreet parking charges could get any more ridiculous.
I was wrong.
I could not believe my eyes yesterday when a concerned trader showed me the consultation letter proposing a charge of £1.80 per hour to park on street in Whitehaven. Afterwards I thought I must have remembered incorrectly and went back to the website to check
Last week I was charged less than half of that at parking meters and less than a third in surface car parks when parking near the centre of Birmingham, for heaven's sake!
All the town centres involved risk losing business to the internet and out-of-town centres like Gretna through these charges, but CCC are also proposing to hit some centres harder, which risk the possibility that they will also lose business to the towns with lower charges, or to towns not affected by this round of charges - though that will not last long.
In Kendal and Carlisle the County Council is proposing to charge £1.20 to park on street, which is bad enough.
In Ambleside, Barrow, Windermere & Bowness they are proposing to charge £1.50 per hour.
But poor old Whitehaven gets hit with £1.80 an hour to park.
It seems that after Copeland Labour party has driven Whitehaven to its' knees, Cumbria Labour comes along with the knife to give the town the coup de grace and finish us off.
At same time as they previously decided to introduce parking charges in the six towns listed above, Cumbria CC. also decided to introduce charging in Cockermouth, Keswick, Maryport, Penrith, and Workington.
So these areas too are on the list and will be affected soon.
When the issue was previously discussed on this blog, some brain-dead anonymous Labour troll attacked myself, and Sean Duffy who had put a comment on the site, for supposedly not wanting to pay to support the county.
Actually I don't have any self-interest here: I work in a building which has a reasonably large car park. My concern is simply that I don't want the small businesses in Cumbria's town centres to die, and these charges have a good chance of bringing about precisely that result.
If you want to look at the details of the county proposals, or respond to the "consultation" which is open until 27th October, you can do so at
http://www.cumbria.gov.uk/payingtopark/default.asp
I put the word "consultation" in inverted commas because, in the FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) section the county admits that in their budget consultation, which had, quote "the largest response ever" there were more people who opposed these charges than supported them.
Cumbria county council justifies ignoring this response because, quote
"It was a consultation, not a referendum" and because, quote,
"Although the number of consultation respondents was the highest ever for the county council, it was still not a statistically representative sample of public opinion in Cumbria (and was not designed to be so)."
In other words, Cumbria's Labour councillors don't intend to pay any intention to what we say, but if you are like me you may want to make a point of letting Cumbria County Council know what you think anyway !!!
I was wrong.
I could not believe my eyes yesterday when a concerned trader showed me the consultation letter proposing a charge of £1.80 per hour to park on street in Whitehaven. Afterwards I thought I must have remembered incorrectly and went back to the website to check
Last week I was charged less than half of that at parking meters and less than a third in surface car parks when parking near the centre of Birmingham, for heaven's sake!
All the town centres involved risk losing business to the internet and out-of-town centres like Gretna through these charges, but CCC are also proposing to hit some centres harder, which risk the possibility that they will also lose business to the towns with lower charges, or to towns not affected by this round of charges - though that will not last long.
In Kendal and Carlisle the County Council is proposing to charge £1.20 to park on street, which is bad enough.
In Ambleside, Barrow, Windermere & Bowness they are proposing to charge £1.50 per hour.
But poor old Whitehaven gets hit with £1.80 an hour to park.
It seems that after Copeland Labour party has driven Whitehaven to its' knees, Cumbria Labour comes along with the knife to give the town the coup de grace and finish us off.
At same time as they previously decided to introduce parking charges in the six towns listed above, Cumbria CC. also decided to introduce charging in Cockermouth, Keswick, Maryport, Penrith, and Workington.
So these areas too are on the list and will be affected soon.
When the issue was previously discussed on this blog, some brain-dead anonymous Labour troll attacked myself, and Sean Duffy who had put a comment on the site, for supposedly not wanting to pay to support the county.
Actually I don't have any self-interest here: I work in a building which has a reasonably large car park. My concern is simply that I don't want the small businesses in Cumbria's town centres to die, and these charges have a good chance of bringing about precisely that result.
If you want to look at the details of the county proposals, or respond to the "consultation" which is open until 27th October, you can do so at
http://www.cumbria.gov.uk/payingtopark/default.asp
I put the word "consultation" in inverted commas because, in the FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) section the county admits that in their budget consultation, which had, quote "the largest response ever" there were more people who opposed these charges than supported them.
Cumbria county council justifies ignoring this response because, quote
"It was a consultation, not a referendum" and because, quote,
"Although the number of consultation respondents was the highest ever for the county council, it was still not a statistically representative sample of public opinion in Cumbria (and was not designed to be so)."
In other words, Cumbria's Labour councillors don't intend to pay any intention to what we say, but if you are like me you may want to make a point of letting Cumbria County Council know what you think anyway !!!
Comments
Well since you, Chris, Have done a pretty good job of stating just how idiotic this idea is, then I can leave that that there.
To the "Brian-dead anonymous Labour troll" (a description I quite liked, and well if the cap fits) I would like to reply thus:
There is nothing I would like more than to pay to support this, my home county. I would do this by using local business, I would buy things i need from a local business in our local town centres rather than stay at home and get it cheaper and more conviently online. I would do this to support my home county, and my local towns. Sadly, however, we seem to have a council who are Hell bent on giving me very good reasons not to.
Right thats that done where now.....
Oh yeah, this ignorning the people thing, thats where. (can you guess where we are going yet?)
You see, governments (local and national) ignoring the wishes of the public, and ruling over rather than providing services to them, has to end. that is why we need democracy, and that is why we need Harrogate.
DEMAND 4:
The people’s consent:
No law, treaty or government decision shall take effect without the consent of the majority of the people, by positive vote if so demanded, and that none shall continue to have effect when that consent is withdrawn by the majority of the people.
and of course,
Demand 5:
No taxation or spending without consent:
No tax, charge or levy shall be imposed, nor any public spending authorised, nor any sum borrowed by any national or local government except with the express approval the majority of the people, renewed annually on presentation of a budget which shall first have been approved by their respective legislatures;
That should do for now.
sounds familiar......
Labour in Cumbria do not appear to get this. If that's what you mean by "Sounds familiar" Jim, then I agree.
These charges are coming into existence as the council feel they need more money, but of course they are not allowed to raise council tax by more than 2% (well actually they are, but to do so they would have to ask the people paying the bill God forbid!
- what is it they want to clear the town centre of?, people?
what a great plan.
tell you what i will propose a better way to save money. Lets just put a large padlock on council offices, close them and sack everyone who works in them. There we go, no more council wages to pay, no more council tax either. Sure it will mean you have to get your bins emptied by a private company (but it will still be cheaper and they will at least do it weekly if you want) but on the whole, I just saved the county a fortune, and allowed business to thrive in our town centres, brilliant.