By Cllr Pauline Jorgensen
Earlier this week, Wokingham Conservatives held a business forum in the town centre which was attended by over 20 local businesses and was an excellent opportunity for us to hear from local businesses about the challenges they are facing.
Conservatives support our local businesses.
They are an essential part of our community. They provide jobs but they also provide other valuable services to our community. They keep our town centres bustling and many offer valuable spaces to chat with friends and neighbours – something we all sorely missed during the pandemic.
Nobody wants to see empty shops and boarded up windows. But if we don’t support the businesses that are here now, that’s what will happen.
Last year, we presented a petition from 4,200 residents to the council against the Liberal Democrat/Labour Coalition’s doubling of car parking charges.
At a council meeting when this change was discussed businesses told us that they would struggle if the plans went ahead
This year’s massive hike in parking charges comes while people across the Borough have felt their budgets squeezed during a time of high inflation, experienced around the world. It would be difficult to see how this would not have an effect on shoppers.
When I talked to business owners in the Woodley precinct about the impact the parking charges are having on their business, they reported significant revenue reductions.
Not only were parking charges raised, but the charging hours were increased to include evenings, mornings and on Sundays. As a result, the number of hours drivers have to pay for parking increased from 60 per week to 112 hours per week. That’s an 87% increase in the times that are charged.
The Liberal Democrat councillor in charge of the Council’s finances said recently that this year’s doubling of car parking charges has had “no direct impact on local businesses”, despite local business owners telling us and this paper otherwise. The business owners at the business forum strongly disputed this claim.
She continued with her party’s usual level of empathy: “I am afraid that for some it is too easy to blame Wokingham Borough Council if they have a problem.”
The Liberal Democrats say they will soon publish the figures for car parking. Unless those figures show an increase in car park usage which corresponds with the 87% increase in chargeable hours its likely their increases have put off shoppers.
The latest blow the Liberal Democrats have dealt to our local businesses is to scrap free festive car parking on Saturdays in December. Instead, they are using Government funding meant for improving bus services to give limited free bus travel in the run up to Christmas. Shoppers will inevitably use this to travel out of the Borough to other areas, like Reading – instead of supporting shops in our own town centres.
The Borough’s rural communities with no bus links, or infrequent services, will see no benefit.
This is just more of the Liberal Democrats’ muddled thinking and mismanagement of Wokingham Borough. It demonstrates their total disconnect from our business community.
If Conservatives had been running the Council this year, we would not have increased parking charges. We said at the time that the charges should only have been increased if there had been significant improvement in the local economy, and then only increased by no more than inflation.
If we are elected to take charge of the Council in May next year, we are committed to backing our local businesses, roll back damaging increases, and making sure that people are encouraged into our towns and villages, not driven away.
Cllr Pauline Jorgensen is the leader of Wokingham Conservatives and ward member for Hillside
