Wyre Forest Car-parking profits

Heated exchanges at the Shuttle over the revelation that the council is making a profit of £429,875 on its car-parks and the excuse given as to why it needs to make a profit:

The surplus made from car parking is used to help deliver services. To not make a surplus, would mean services elsewhere would have to be cut.

Normally I wouldn't have a problem with that as this is pretty much how government works, however given the slow growth and recession we've had price-increases and an entire car-park that was formerly free being made pay-and-display. As a result this smacks to me of raising prices on one service simply to fund other services. That's where I have a problem.

On another note let's add up the figures:

£   72,613 Parking fines
£   94,726 Enforcement fines
£   72,420 Staff passes
£    9,067 Senior concession
£  120,853 Season passes
£      600 Rents
£  117,605 Management fees
£  947,591 Parking meters

£1,435,475 Total

Remove the profit and that's an operating cost of  £1,005,600.

Now where this gets interesting is that I have to guess that the Staff passes, Management fees, Rents, and Senior concessions are being paid for by Wyre Forest District Council to... Wyre Forest District Council. So that's simply taking money out of the bucket and putting it back in the bucket.

Strip out the dosey-do'ing and they're really pulling in £1,235,783; remove the operating cost and the profit gained from car-park patrons is really £230,183 a year.

So if this were removed, exactly which other services would need to be cut?

Police Commissioner more politicking

I dealt with the puff-piece from the Conservatives regarding their candidate for the post of Police Commissioner for the West Midlands last week; they did a second piece which astonishingly was almost manifesto-like in that a promise was made that

a priority will be to make it easier and less intimidating for victims – especially women – to report [domestic violence and abuse] incidents to the Police

presumably by signing up to Victim Support's "Five Promises to/for Victims and Witnesses". Of course that doesn't mean anything will get done, but if it doesn't we have the ability to call him out on it.

Local Labour (who allegedly were trying to keep Party politics out of the race) seem to have decided that they're going to have to counter their opponents publicity, but sadly echo the Conservatives "lite" styling of 'I too think bad things are bad and will try to do good'.

The big joke about all this is that officially we the electorate have yet to discover who the candidates standing actually are and won't until next Friday when the list will be published here. (Kudos to Labour for publishing the link)

Why not visit Tenbury Wells

Why not visit Tenbury Wells

Financed by Worcestershire County Council and Malvern Hills District Council in association with Tenbury Town Council and Tenbury's Chamber of Trade

So where's the video for Stourport, Bewdley or Kidderminster? Where's our 'Apple' scheme?

The Wyre Forest Traveller site debacle

Tav over at the WFA has provided two worthy reports on the meetings in which the proposal for the travellers' sites required in Wyre Forest was discussed. The first on the initial Overview & Scrutiny meeting and the second on the subsequent Cabinet meeting.

I'm going to attempt to condense this into a single point and remove anything that might be deemed prejudicial to the case. Therefore instead of discussing traveller's gypsies etc. this will simply be a Project.

Wyre Forest is required to complete a Project and to do so needs a minimum of five sites to work. Experts have evaluated the area of Wyre Forest and produced a report identifying a possible 15 sites which are suitable. The O&S committee examined the report and recommended its presentation to Cabinet. The Cabinet then removed 8 of the sites from the list and left the remaining 7 available to public consultation.

At this point anyway might ask the question "What justification did the Cabinet have for removing 8 of the sites?" Hopefully the minutes, when produced, may reveal that. However it is worth noting that in the past the council has 'hidden' behind expert recommendations most notably the Icelandic Bank affair; so what makes these particular expert opinions incorrect?

Bringing context back into line, whether rightly or wrongly there is a negative discrimination against travellers. As such if someone from an area with a proposed site argued against it a question may arise if they are doing so because they genuinely consider the placement to be incorrect or if they're trying to protect their own ward's votes. Ordinarily this wouldn't be an issue as such would be balanced out by the rest of the committee, however in this case of the five members of the Cabinet three are based in the same ward. A ward which did have a site within it and was subsequently pruned out by said committee.

I'm not questioning integrity etc., but when anyone has the final say in a decision that may affect them adversely or otherwise their decision needs to be seen as being cleaner than clean.

Cafe 54

The charity run Cafe 54 in Bewdley received a quick mention in one of the BBC's local news slots this morning. Essentially a repeat of this.

A walk to Bewdley, well sort of.

As mentioned before I had planned on taking the kids up to Bewdley along the river, but that never happened. In the spirit of things my father roused me and offered to walk the route with me; or at least up to Stoney Bottom.

Unlike the 'proper' side of the river the Areley side is overgrown and barely looks like a path there are certainly no signs informing anyone of this at the bridge end. Once past that the dirt trail became more apparent. It is a story in contrasts - at times the path is clearly defined and two people could walk abreast down it; at others it's barely there covered in waist (or higher) vegetation. Good sturdy bridges and gates follow from a section of soft earth that borders a 20-foot near vertical drop straight to the river and again unlike the other side this doesn't even have points for life-saving rings regardless of whether they're occupied or not.

This is the forgotten side of the river with all the money and tidying up occurring on the town side. I can understand why; it's the side that brings in money from rents etc and there's quite literally no room for development on the the Areley side. However one of these days someone's going to fall down that slope and drown and questions will be asked as to why this public footpath wasn't maintained.

Oh and we met three cows close to one of the stiles set up to prevent them travelling - two jumped over it; so those are working well.

With good time we carried on to the Woodman where a car-boot was going on; then headed back. It was a good walk and took us an hour with Bewdley probably being another half-hour further; far too far for the Bratii; though I may take them up this far by car and venture onto Stagborough Hill.

Looking at the Worcestershire site detailing walks around this area the missing information is car parking. Presumably people just appear by magic at the start of these routes. Oh and am I the only one amused that the Ribbesford Circular trail appears not to venture into Ribbesford Woods?

Car-park Order alterations

So between the copy presented to the cabinet and the copy that was finalised what were the changes?

This is the difference between the draft copy as presented to Cabinet (not the one presented with the original order) and the finalised version that no-one got to see until it was brought in.

Long table here. Price decrease in Green, price increase in Yellow, Woah in Red, removals and additions marked as red text.

Read More >>

Parking restrictions

Yes I keep going on about this, but as two recent stories in the Shuttle show I need to.

The first is about an irate biker fined for parking in Bewdley on Severnside North (judging by the photo at least). From the paper his arguments appear to be as follows:

a) Although there were double yellow lines there were no restriction signs
b) he was parked on the pavement not the road
c) everyone else does it

To which my answers are:
a) Signs aren't required for double yellow lines and haven't been for some time,
b) the restrictions apply for the full width from the middle of the carriageway until it hits private property,
c) what are you five?

The second is Cllr Clee accusing Cllr Gittins of parking illegally to attend a council meeting in [sigh] Bewdley. The points seem to be:

a) Parked in a disabled bay,
b) parked facing the wrong way,
c) holding up resurfacing works due to being parked there.

Answers being:

a) There was a blue badge holder using the vehicle,
b) there's no such thing as the wrong way unless you're parked on a unlit road at night (in which case you need your lights on) or you park in a one-way street,
c) no cones seem to be evident to prevent parking while resurfacing work is to be done.

So in the first case we have someone stating they've done no wrong, when the clearly have (and provided the evidence to boot); and in the second someone making a partial apology when they've done no wrong.

Come on people these rules aren't exactly difficult or hard to find.