Rabu, 06 Januari 2010

Two cheers for Graeme Hicks

Graeme Hicks is the Cabinet Member for Highways and Planning and as such is also responsible for parking. Given my thoughts on most of the things that Cornwall Council's administration comes up with, you might expect me to criticise anything the Graeme says or does. But today Graeme's comments on car parking hit the nail right on the head.

When pressed on the need for car parking charges to be set at the right level to help town centre shops, Cllr Hicks agreed that charges for town centre short term parking should be low enough to encourage people to use town centre shops rather than out of town supermarkets. He said that car parking should not be seen automatically as a revenue raising opportunity.

It is very refreshing to hear this from the cabinet and I hope that the review of all parking charges will come to the same conclusion. In contrast, Andrew Wallis, Chair of the Parking Panel, has a post on his blog which links parking charges directly to revenue raising and demanding that anyone who wants to cut parking charges should be forced to come up with an alternative source of cash.

So two cheers for Graeme Hicks. He can have the third cheer if he manages to steer a sensible review of parking charges through the Cabinet.

Tidak ada komentar :

Posting Komentar