Cllr Pauline Jorgensen
In last week’s paper Cllr Andy Croy launched a breathless attack on Wokingham’s Conservative Group, perhaps because he finds his own awkward position propping up his Lib Dem Coalition partners indefensible.
In last month’s Council meeting he described us as “out of touch” which is funny because in the same sentence he was fiercely rejecting the notion of equal opportunities for women and girls.
Since September Conservative councillors have tried to bring a motion to Council celebrating the achievements of England’s Lionesses and calling on the Council to ensure girls in the Borough have the opportunity to play football at school. We all saw the success of England’s Women’s team. Many of those players didn’t have the opportunity to play football at school and have talked about the difficulties they have faced. They have also spoken about making football more accessible for future generations of girls – and why not?
We shouldn’t forget that the FA banned women’s football until 1971. I often played football with groups of local boys in my street but sadly at school it wasn’t an option for girls. Cllr Croy bemoans the lack of funding for what he sees as extra provision but if a school offers football for boys it doesn’t need any new equipment or teachers in order to swap a few of the girls PE lessons for football – many schools are doing this. There is nothing extra needed to simply give girls the same opportunities as the boys.
On the night I am glad that all councillors supported the motion apart from the Labour councillors.
In his column Cllr Croy also kindly quoted me at length from an answer I gave to a question from him during the debate on car parking charges.
He notes that we in the Conservative Group have called on the administration to reverse parking charges, and that we wouldn’t have increased charges by the amount that the Liberal Democrats have.
He then seems confused as to why we can’t say how much we would increase charges by until we produce an alternative budget.
His extensive quote from me answers his own question. As an Opposition, we don’t have access to all the information that the administration has.
We have to make sure that our position on parking charges works within our alternative budget. We have been clear though that we don’t support the swinging increases proposed by the coalition that Cllr Croy and Labour are part of, and I can confirm that we would not increase charges by more than inflation and only when the economic environment supports that.
There is no earthly point in increasing charges if shops are empty and no one comes to the town centres.
We, and the council scrutiny committee, still haven’t been shown a business case for increasing parking charges, despite repeatedly asking for it to be made available – at the last Council meeting and in a column from my colleague Cllr Keith Baker.
At a Council meeting, we were asked to vote on these massive charge increases and the Conservative councillors voted against – this was only after our petition forced the issue to be brought to all councillors in the first place, rather than just approved on the quiet by the Liberal Democrat led coalition. We have no way of knowing whether it will create the revenue that Liberal Democrat councillors claim. We can’t support it, and our residents don’t want it. The Labour Group, on the other hand, voted to increase parking charges.
So, Cllr Croy’s position is that he blindly went along with doubling car parking charges without having any proof that it would raise the money the Liberal Democrats say it will – or else his party have seen a business case and are working with the Liberal Democrats to prevent the Opposition and the public from seeing it. Either way, he and his Labour colleagues have helped the Liberal Democrats force through punishing parking charges without transparency and in the face of opposition from local people.
These charges will hit low-income households and struggling businesses the hardest.
Cllr Croy may be confused, but residents are very clear which side he is on, and it’s certainly not theirs.
Cllr Pauline Jorgensen in the Conservative group leader on Wokingham Borough Council
