Massive response to free parking petition
WITH charges included in the coming financial year's proposed budget it is now down to councillors to protect free car parking.
A total of 2,310 people signed a joint Free Press and Winch & Blatch run petition urging Babergh District Council not to start charging motorists 1.50 to use its long-stay car parks in Sudbury, Hadleigh and Lavenham.
This petition will be formally handed over to Babergh's open spaces manager Stewart Schleip tomorrow, meaning the public fight to safeguard free car parking has been taken as far as it can.
Now the matter lays firmly in the hands of the elected representatives who make up Babergh's full council.
Peter Beer, a veteran Babergh district councillor and long-term opponent of car parking charges, fears it could even be too late to stop the authority railroading car parking charges through.
He added: "Car parking charges are a tax on the workers of Sudbury and Hadleigh being pushed through because of a financial mess not of their making.
"This tax will work out at 7.50 a week, 30 a month and 390 a year for people working Monday to Friday.
"Many of these people are already in low paid jobs and I believe car parking charges are totally unfair."
In nineteen days time, Babergh District Council will hold a final vote on whether to formally adopt its proposed budget for the next financial year. Included in this package of measures is the proposal to charge motorists 1.50 to use its long-stay car parks.
Before the final vote by Babergh's Full Council on whether to accept its controversial budget, which also includes a host of other measures designed to claw the authority out of its 1.6 million financial black hole, the matter has to be discussed by its strategy committee.
It meets next Thursday and its members will decide whether or not to recommend the adoption of the budget by the full council – if it does, car parking charges would become a reality unless the dramatic step of councillors voting to reject the entire budget takes place.
A spokeswoman for Babergh District Council said: "The draft budget papers for 2010 to 11 are the result of months of deliberations and investigations.
"The total package includes a raft of savings, efficiencies and other means of filling the budget gap.
"The draft budget paper will come before Babergh's Strategy Committee on February 11, before it is formally recommended to council at the end of the month."
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Friday 25 May 2012
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