12 Feb 2011

Tories declare war on cycling!


From the Green Group of Councillors, Brighton & Hove City Council





TORIES PUT TRANSPORT INTO REVERSE



Following the release of Tory proposals for Brighton & Hove City Council’s budget for the coming year, Green Transport spokesperson Cllr Ian Davey has charged the Conservative administration with wasting public money on ill thought out transport projects.



In the council’s budget papers released on Friday, the Tories announced that they will be spending £1.1million on removing the cycle lanes on The Drive in Hove, and that they will be borrowing millions to put towards their plans to spend £4.5million on refurbishing car parks.



Cllr Davey commented:



“It is only 3 years since this same Conservative administration spent over half a million pounds of public money on installing the cycle lanes. Now they plan to spend more than twice as much taking it out.



“To make matters worse, they may well have to give back the £0.3million that they were given by the government to pay for the lane in the first place. How mad is that?”



“At the same time they are planning to spend £4.5million on doing up car parks. In good times such expenditure would be questionable. In times of austerity this proposal is grossly irresponsible.



“The Tories clearly do not have a coherent vision for transport in this city. Their ill thought out proposals, combined with their cuts to staff numbers including those in road safety, will only worsen the problems of traffic congestion, air pollution and road safety that blight this city.



“They are shifting transport policy firmly into reverse.”






*The council budget papers can be viewed at http://present.brighton-hove.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?MId=2804&x=1

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Seems daft to spend money removing what it's cost a lot of money to put in, but it probably comes from a different "pot" so doesn't count.
As for the car park issue, we would have the best roads motorways and car parks if we spent any of the monies raised through VED on transport of any kind.
All that big fat wad of cash goes to defence.

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