By Cllr Charles Margetts
The Council budget passed last week by Wokingham’s Liberal Democrat/Labour administration was nothing short of an ideological attack on motorists and road users.
Parking charges were doubled, road repair funding cut by 10% in real terms, and expensive cycleway schemes were prioritised over cheaper, equally effective greenway alternatives.
All this was rammed through by an administration that wants to force people out of their cars simply because the Liberal Democrats and Labour don’t like drivers.
It didn’t have to be this way. Conservative councillors proposed amendments to the budget which included just under £2.2 million savings by removing increases in back-office costs, communications, and PR, and removing some expensive interim posts.
These were not only sensible and prudent savings but also where residents want us to spend less.
It meant that we could have reallocated some of that money to improve services residents need, cancel hikes in charges, and invest in infrastructure.
We think it is fundamentally wrong to double car parking charges and introduce evening and weekend charges at a time when people are struggling. This will kill off the fragile post-Covid recovery and it will hit people who rely on their cars.
Under the increased charges, a resident commuting from Finchampstead to Wokingham five days a week will spend almost £2,000 in additional parking charges over a year. This is madness.
We will scrap this punitive scheme and keep any future rises in line with inflation.
The Liberal Democrat/Labour Coalition have said they have no choice but to increase parking charges. However, the savings we found in the budget demonstrate this is clearly not true.
And the administration’s punishing increase in charges will only save 30% of the £500,000 they claim. The Council has had to allocate £350,000 to cover the drop off in usage of car parks and park and rides caused by the very increase they voted through.
The Liberal Democrat/Labour coalition has also frozen the amount the council spends of road and pavement maintenance for the next three years.
With inflation running at 10% this is a real terms cut and means less road, pothole and pavement repairs will be carried out in the next three years.
Conservatives have committed to an above inflationary increase to improve road and pavement surfaces and reduce potholes.
We also believe residents should have alternative transport choices apart from the car. We would continue to financially support local buses as they are now and will actively promote the routes to encourage usage.
The Liberal Democrat/Labour coalition is raising taxes and introducing additional charges – however it is delivering residents a lot less.
You pay more and get less under the Lib Dem/Labour coalition.
I believe it is important to continue to invest in cycleways and greenways across the borough.
We would talk to local parish councils and make simple cost-effective changes ensuring existing paths and cycleways are more usable, such as improved barriers and more drop kerbs.
Rather than spending a lot of money and time developing schemes next to main roads, we would propose to build on the success of the greenway programme, with separate cycleways which can be delivered quicker and for less money per scheme.
The greenways programme works and has delivered results – I note that the coalition budget has no funding for greenways past 2023/2024.
We would spend money on expanding and linking the existing network, instead of designing speculative schemes which won’t get local support, and we will focus on new roads and missing link cycleways in partnership with the town and parish councils. In short we will do more than talk about cycleways – we will actually get on and deliver them.
Unfortunately, the Liberal Democrats, Labour and the Independents rejected our proposals.
They made a choice based on an obsession that people cannot be allowed to drive around the Borough.
All this has demonstrated that there is only one party on the Council that is committed to providing a choice through investment in sustainable and car transport – the Conservatives.
Cllr Charles Margetts is a Conservative councillor for Finchampstead North on Wokingham Borough Council
