A shock slap in the face for the Lib Dem ruling group on Somerset County as their controversial proposals to standardise car parking charges across the county and bring in night time charges was voted down by their own Corporate Scrutiny Committee. The proposals were rejected unanimously by Labour, Greens, Tories and even Lib Dems on the committee leaving their budget in tatters and another £1.5m gap to find funding for.
Speaking at the meeting Cllr Kathy Pearce (Labour, Bridgwater South) said “Town centres are already facing challenging times with out of town and online shopping. We need to attract people into our town centres. These proposals would send a very negative message and increase congestion in nearby residential streets which were already under pressure. The proposals lack the necessary impact assessments to make decisions and the consultation would need to be tailored to meet the needs of individual communities.”
Cllr Brian Smedley (Labour, Bridgwater South) said “The proposal will now go to the ‘all-Lib Dem’ Executive Committee but they’re very unlikely to support it now. If they do they will clearly look desperate to get this unpopular and unworkable measure passed. It’s not often that there’s unanimous cross party opposition to proposals so this was clearly one of their worst.”
County Labour group Leader cllr Leigh Redman (Labour , Bridgwater North & Central) said “If it goes to Exec now it will go with extreme opposition. I was recently able to highlight the failings of their Equality Impact Assesment which put the whole proposal at risk. They may now find the best option is to withdraw gracefully.”
The Council has several Scrutiny Committees which study proposals in detail and make recomendations back to Executive and then to Full Council. Somerset Council has a strong Lib Dem majority and a considerable hole in its budget to plug . The parking proposals were seen as a way of doing that and eyes will now turn to the Exec meeting next week to see if the Lib Dems can go through with them or accept the cross party rejection.