Councillor Update
There has been no let up for us throughout January and early February. After a fairly heated debate at Council on 24th January, the Conservative administration voted 27 to 12 in favour of the proposed merger with Bournemouth and Christchurch. As each of the nine councils voted, it was interesting to note growing dissent amongst the District Councils, as fi rst Purbeck, and then East Dorset and Christchurch voted against the proposals, preferring to maintain the status quo. It is now up to the Secretary of State to make the fi nal decision, though we understand that the six supporting councils will continue to argue for the merger to take place. Clearly, there will now be a period of uncertainty until the fi nal decision is announced.
The battle to halt the 150% hike in car parking charges, announced by Cabinet on 10th January, continued throughout the month. We were successful in our request for Cabinet’s decision to go before the call-in scrutiny committee. Mike was the lead spokes- person at the meeting, but he had also arranged for representatives from Poole BID and Broadstone Chamber of Commerce to address the committee. After almost two hours of questioning, new information emerged about the way the new prices had been established. It was then proposed that the decision should be deferred for further fi nancial scrutiny. Unfortunately, this was rejected by three votes (all Conservative) to two (Lib Dems) refl ecting the political balance of the committee. Call-in committee did, however, unanimously support a proposal that future changes in car parking charges should be submitted for scrutiny before a decision is made. However, when presented to the Conservative Cabinet for consideration, members rejected this – arguing that scrutiny wasn’t necessary!
Our petition, opposing the price increases, gathered momentum throughout January, so that when it was submitted to Cabinet on 7th February it had gained over 3,000 signatures. Regrettably Cabinet members once again ignored the views of local businesses and residents, and confi rmed the original decision. The new charges are: up to 1 hour £1; up to 2 hours £2.50, and up to 3 hours £3.50, an increase of 169%. To make the district car parks more expensive than in either Bournemouth or Poole does not make any sense and could have a major impact on Broadstone’s businesses. We would like to thank those businesses that helped collect the signatures and everyone who signed. We will continue to support Broadstone and challenge those decisions that we think are wrong or unfair.
At the last Cabinet meeting, members voted to recommend to full council the maximum allowable council tax increase of 4.99%. This will be ratifi ed
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by council on 21st February. Overall, however, the amount you pay will increase by more than this because of the additional fi re and police precepts.
We have received a large number of objections from residents to the latest round of toilet closures, which include those by the cricket ground off Charborough Road and those at Baiter. Again, we have been successful in achieving a call-in scrutiny committee meeting. This is scheduled for Monday 20th February. We will report the outcome in our next update.
Our next surgeries are: 4th March, 1st April! and 6th May in Broadstone Library commencing at 10am.
Cllrs Mike Brooke & Vikki Slade
m.brooke@
poole.gov.uk 07584 168991
vikki.slade@
poole.gov.uk 01202 604191
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