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Council Parking Policy - A Scandal
1st May 2010
Mr George has called on the Council to review their recently introduced hike in parking charges and insistence on the charging of disabled drivers following many complaints to him from local people about the Council’s policy.
Mr George said: “Local people already pay through the nose, with higher than average Council Taxes and lower than average services. It is simply unacceptable that the Council is imposing higher car parking charges when many of the local parish and town councils would prefer to run the car parks themselves with the interests of the local community at heart.
“Local retail businesses are complaining as well. Higher car park charges, the crippling cost of season tickets and the driving away of disabled customers simply puts town centre shops at an even greater disadvantage to the giant out-of-town superstores which are killing off our town centres.
“I have told the Council before that they should work hard to slap a surcharge on out-of-town superstores; to charge extra for the car parks which are not properly assessed or charged for under their business rates and to use the income from that to subsidise rather than to increase town centre car park charges. The Council has singularly failed to use the provisions of the Sustainable Communities Act to bring forward creative proposals to sustain our communities, rather than turn them into ghost towns ringed by out-of-town shopping malls,” said Mr George.
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