Does The Council Ever Listen ?
We never set out to make our campaign political in any way. But we are becoming increasingly alarmed at the Lib Dem councillors' somewhat arrogant attitude to public opinion.
Take the recent decision to introduce parking charges for the wonderful Hylands House. The Grade II neo-classical villa situated within the 232 hectare Hylands Park is owned and operated by Chelmsford City Council.
Despite the fact that the public consultation is still running, and having received a petition against the charges from 7,500 park users and residents, the council passed the motion to charge for parking at a meeting of the full council on Wednesday, February 24th 2021.
In effect it was steamrollered through with almost indecent haste, and before any real opposition could be organised. Two amendments to the motion, which would have prevented the charges were voted down by the Lib Dem controlled council.
So what constitutes considerable public support, and what would make the council listen ? This comment from a Lib Dem councillor posted on social media gives us a huge clue.
“According to Wikki, the population of the district is 168,310, so 6,378 is about 4%, I haven’t analysed the detail of the signatories, but have skimmed through it (it’s part of the agenda pack online from last night), there are a good number who are not part of the local population (Chelmsford District residents).
There’s a good number coming from Maldon/Brentwood/Colchester/Southend etc. While extremes I also spotted were from Peterborough and Norfolk. The 10% figure is sadly incorrect”.
We would suggest that 7,500 signatories and hundreds of emails to ward councillors is a considerable response, and a clear indicator of public opinion.Was there a petition in support of the charges ? No, of course there wasn’t.
Just to put this into perspective, not everyone uses the internet or would have seen the petition online, clearly their opinions can be dismissed and ignored then ? The public consultation in reality is a sham, since the council have passed the charges before it even finishes, and again it’s only available online. You can view the consultation here. We note that the key question, do you support or object to the charges is not included.
The council are wrong to believe that people will happily hand over between £3-5 per day to visit Hylands Park ? At a time when everyone is tightening their purse strings, that simply won’t happen, and visitors will go elsewhere. What then for the onsite businesses ?
As the petiton’s creator Robert Gisby correctly points out “Hylands Park is an important green space and I am worried that a charge will exclude the poorest, as well as being costly to implement and manage”. At a time when mental and physical health are so important, introducing a charge which will prevent people from visiting Hylands is beyond insensitive.
This is of course not the first time recently that the Lib Dems have shown themselves to be insensitive , Chelmsford City Council is considering raising funeral fees from April by 12%, which equates to about £100 for cremations. And this in the middle of a pandemic.
For a council that constantly asks you to “have your say on local democracy”, the Lib Dems seem to be very quick to dismiss public opinion, and do what they want anyway, and that’s not democratic.
In relation to our campaign, we’ve seen the same level of arrogance and dismissive behaviour from the Lib Dem ward councillors. Clearly opinions that don’t comply with their equality and diversity vision, will just be ignored and dismissed. They are clearly happy to sacrifice the sports and leisure club for the cause.
With by-elections scheduled for May 6th 2021, it’s time to start showing the Lib Dems that they ignore public opinion at their peril.
KBO