Parking review rejected
by Council's Cabinet
At its meeting on 3 June, Rushcliffe Borough Council's Cabinet (or, rather, the 4 members who actually turned up) unanimously rejected the Off-Street Parking Review in a "debate" lasting just 4 minutes. This followed months of work by Council officers and members, several hundred pages of statistics on car park usage, several meetings by a specially convened sub-committee, and meetings with local representatives and stakeholders in communities likely to be affected by the proposals.
There is only one word to describe this cop-out:
Shameful
The excuses given to justify this collapse of responsibility were:
- The problems "had not been identified", even though hundreds of pages of evidence had been assembled.
- There was "not enough consultation" - even though community representatives had been fully consulted during the several months of the review.
- There needs to be more evidence of the impact of Civil Parking Enforcement.
The review is now being referred back to the Place Shaping and Community Engagement Group, which had taken the report from its sub-committee and supported its recommendations. In the meantime (which is likely to be 12 months before anything is done), there will be no progress on long-stay parking in Bingham (badly needed) or on releasing spaces for casual shoppers in Church Drive, Keyworth (also badly needed). There also will not be any charging at car parks in Bingham, Radcliffe or Rushcliffe Country Park, which some had argued were necessary because of increasing demand and also because of the cost of security (at the Country Park).
In an attempt to get the Cabinet to justify its actions, the Liberal Democrat Group has called-in the Cabinet decision and requested it to be considered by the Performance Management Board at its meeting on 23 June.
