So I'm sure no-one has missed the fact that at the budget making meeting on Tuesday your new Cheshire East council voted for a budget which provided a 0% increase in Council Tax. I think I may have mentioned it once before.
Interestingly, the Labour members of the council voted against the budget. I assume that were incensed that we could have the audacity to not make the people of Cheshire pay more tax at a time when people are struggling to pay the bills.
Those socialists really are heartless, you know.
The Lib Dems abstained, obviously not sure if we should tax people more or not. I'm told that all of this petty politics is par for the course, although as a new Councillor I still found it a tremendous disappointment.
However the Lib Dems raised an interesting amendment which I spoke to before voting against, and I feel I should explain myself.
The amendment was to delay the proposed inflationary increase to parking fees in Macclesfield.
I immediately saw the benefit in this. It's my view that parking charges are killing the town centre and that one of the things we could do to help traders out is to review parking. This was the reason the Lib dems gave for this amendment.
So given my views, voting against it must be quite hypocritcal?
When you consider it, 10 pence on parking here and there will make no difference. It's having to pay at all that is the deterrent - and that's what I said to the Council. I don't want the cabinet to believe they have dealt with the parking vs shoppers problem by delaying at 10 pence increase.
I then pointed out what the increases actually were. An example:
Current Future
0-1 hours .50 .50
1-2 hours .90 .90
2-3 hours 2.00 2.00
3-4 hours 2.60 2.70
How many shoppers spend over 3 hours in Macc? Even my wife can't manage that...and if she could 3.3 pence extra per hour isn't going to put her off.
A committee has been formed to review the parking charges, and I've now asked that I be co-opted onto it. Hopefully I can make a difference.
Friday 27 February 2009
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3 comments:
Maybe the Labour members wanted to improve services?
By the same logic that freezing car parking charges is pointless, freezing council tax is also meaningless if it is considered out of context - in other words what level of service does it equate to and what is the value obtained?
Darryl, your profile says you can often be seen walking the streets of Macc West. If you walk the same streets as me you must notice that some areas are becoming like cesspits. Residents don't want to pay more, but they do want the Council to fulfill one of its basic functions, i.e. keep the streets clean, and if budget freezes prevent this from being achieved you will not be thanked for it.
Perhaps they did want to improve services - I hope so. One concern raised by them was the cut in budget for Connexions who deliver a lot of our youth services and I had some sympathy with this.
However I don't accept that all services get equal value for money. It's possible to reduce the amount spent and still deliver quality services.
Letwin used to say "Value for money, value for money, value for money". It never really caught on with the public which was a mystery to me - I thought it made a lot of sense. Perhaps I'm out of touch.
I think I might have said that I run the streets more than walk - so I'm normally trying to keep up a good pace and my dinner down...but yes, your point about the cleanliness is understood.
What seems strange to me at the moment is why certain streets are kept much cleaner than others. I will add this to my to-do list and see if I can identify any reason why this is so.
Some interesting comments in this article especially from the cheshire east spokesman.
http://www.thisisstaffordshire.co.uk/news/Fury-car-parking-charges/article-731922-detail/article.html
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