Went along to the Policy Commission that is dealing with the promised Islanders car park permit tonight. They had finalised a paper for the Cabinet giving options for introducing the long awaited £50 annual permit. It was due in mid-May, then December, and now planned for April.....next year I assume.
The Tories had promised in their manifesto that the pensioner permit would be 50p per week (or 48p in another section), but have now ruled that out as 'unrealistic' and gave no reasons in reponse to my enquiry. So it will be £35 per year, which is an increase of £9, or 35%, on their promise. £9 is a lot for those pensioners on very small fixed incomes running an old car as cheaply as they can, due to generally eratic and expensive public transport.
I also asked questions about - potential conflict of this policy with government expectations for reducing car usage (they will contest that), the projection that parking meter rates will increase by 10% to help pay for this policy (it is only a projection - we shall see), and what the Commission Chair's preference was out of the 4 options they were presenting to Cabinet. To be fair to him he honestly answered all my questions and indicated that he wanted a 24 hour permit, rather than one for shorter periods. However, another Tory member indicated he wanted the permit to be for no more than 3 hours.
Will be interesting to see if the Cabinet also reneges on the promise to pensioners. If they don't I would like to think it will be due to my own vigilance over their manifesto. They must be ruing the day they got manifestorial diarrhoea !
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