Letter in the News and Crier 25/2/10

My comments on Letters to the Editor pages in the ever excellent News and Crier.

Your views on St Neots Riverside Car Park - is a series of 6 letters on this issue. I'll comment on 4 of them here. 


Any charges are unacceptable - Steve van de Kerkhove has to start thinking ahead for when he gets into power.  This decision would be his. The problem is a car park cost money to run. 


Concession does not go far enough - Is Cllr Barry Chapman the leader of the St Neots Conservative Councillors? He is certainly writing as though he is. As the St Neots Conservatives are "leading" the campaign against their Conservative colleagues at HDC. As for his St Ivo comparison this falls down as they are not comparable. St Ivo is about 600 metres from the edge of St Ives Town Centre. The better comparison is either the Riverside CP and the Godmanchester CP both which charge at 20 pence per hour.
The trouble with Cllr Chapman's letter is he misses the point. Car Park charges are revenue. If he doesn't want these charges he either needs to find replacement revenue or make cuts.


Budget mess needs a proper strategy - David Gadenne writes a very good letter about the need for HDC to have a strategy.


HDC doesn't car about local business - Jon Mountfort gets towards the point but misses it. The old HDC building had to go because it was falling down. As for free parking in Fenland District Council this is true. But as with all free provision someone has to pay. In this case free car parks cost the Fenland Council Taxpayer £410,560 or £13.34 each. In Huntingdonshire car park charges contribute to the budget £526,000 or £8.98 per Council Taxpayer. 


As for his idea of making all the car parks free we will end up in the position of Fenland were their Car parks cost. Effectively this would mean a loss in income of £526k + additional costs of £410k makes a total of £936k. This would mean an extra £15.98 per council taxpayer.
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On a different note:


Where are all the politically correct jobs - Ric Euteneuer of Huntingdonshire Unison makes a good point about what are backroom jobs and frontline jobs. When talking about this our local politicians need to define what are frontline jobs.