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Richmond upon Thames Liberal Democrats:Covering the constituencies of Twickenham and Richmond Park |
Tory council hit motorists
May 22, 2011 11:44 AM
• May 13]: DESPITE claiming to be the motorists' friend, Richmond's Tory council has found two new ways of charging car owners.
Many more car parks will have evening charges and charges on Sundays and bank holidays. Significantly the justification for this is "income generation". This change will inevitably cause worse parking problems in nearby streets. Will the Tories then have controlled parking zones charges on evenings, Sundays and bank holidays?
The second change involves CCTV cameras and the Smart cars with cameras raising almost a million pounds a year by aggressive enforcement of "moving traffic contraventions". We don't object to enforcement of box junction and bus lane offences and right turn restrictions. But this has to be proportionate to the problems caused. Clearly this change in policy is intended to raise money, rather than help the community or the car owners.
These changes come on top of the hike in car parking charges for all but the largest cars. The Tories have doubled the charges for smaller more environmentally friendly cars, and are stopping the 20 pence for 20 minutes parking meter charges which attracted shoppers from outside the borough.
David Williams, Lib Dem spokesperson for Finance, said, "Despite all the spin from Richmond's Tories that they have a 'humane' parking policy, they are raising existing charges on all but the gas guzzlers, bringing in new charges, and making aggressive use of CCTV to raise income from motorists. Are Richmond's Tories becoming the anti-motorist party?"
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