Residents count cost of on-street parking fiasco (Mole Valley Liberal Democrats)

Mole Valley Liberal Democrats <info@molevalleylibdems.org.uk>

Residents count cost of on-street parking fiasco

October 13, 2011 4:49 PM

Councillors Caroline Salmon and Phil Harris outisde County Hall earlier this year

The complete withdrawal of the Conservative scheme to impose on-street parking charges across Surrey has been announced. The final defeat of this scheme is great news and a victory for all those who campaigned against it from day one. But residents are realising that they will pick up the bill.

It was the 26,300 strong internet petition launched by Liberal Democrat District Councillor Caroline Salmon that ultimately led to the defeat of this flawed policy. The Conservative majority in Surrey County Council (sadly including Bookham & Fetcham West Councillor Clare Curran) voted in May to ignore this petition but they must have known then that this was the voice of the people. They simply did not listen and went on wasting thousands of pounds of public money on developing a scheme no-one wanted.

Instead of changing the discredited policy, individual Conservative councillors then incurred further costs persuading officials that the scheme was not viable for the particular area each of them represented. This was not difficult to do because in truth there was little or no economic case for this scheme anywhere in Surrey.

In Mole Valley this led to the Local Committee being asked to approve a plan excluding Ashtead, Leatherhead and Bookham. However the falsity of this approach was exposed when the Conservative County and District councillors on the Local Committee were forced to admit that the same argument applied to Dorking. They all abstained on a successful Liberal Democrat amendment to add Dorking to the excluded list!

Across Surrey the parking charge policy was clearly collapsing and it is likely that the resignation of the County Council Leader Andrew Povey was linked to this debacle. As the Tories on the County Council try to establish their new leader, we as Council taxpayers must all pick up the bill caused by Conservative County Councillors, including those who represent Mole Valley, refusing to listen to the clearly stated views of the public.