Sam Davies
My blog post here last week made the front page of the Cambridge Independent newspaper (above), which will still be available at local newsagents. That generated plenty of correspondence! I’ve also been working on my response to the GCP’s ‘Making Connections’ (a.k.a. ‘road charging’) proposals. I’ll bring you that next week.
Yesterday saw a demonstration on the city in favour of the scheme, following on from the one against it two weeks ago.
"I like big bus and I cannot lie" #YesToSTZ pic.twitter.com/7zl4sYN7tU
— Yes to the Cambridge Sustainable Travel Zone (@snifftheair) December 10, 2022
Demonstration in Cambridge against congestion charging.
More on @BBCCambs tomorrow pic.twitter.com/XMcsdJenSH
— Mark Williamson (@markrwilliamson) November 27, 2022
If you have opinions or suggestions on the proposals, I really do encourage you to respond to the GCP’s survey. This closes just before Christmas, on 23 December. You can find it here, along with the explanatory document. There’s also a good background article in the new Queen Edith’s magazine, just published by the Queen Edith’s Community Forum. If you haven’t had a copy through your door yet, you can read it online here.
My wife and I have already submitted our views expressing our total opposition towards the proposed Congestion Charge plan.
Forgive me if I have dwelt on this before, but I have yet to see any rational explanation as to how CCC can spend literally £millions (Dutch roundabout as an expensive example) on nice-to-have projects over the last 2-3 years – with little if any discernable added value to we, whose pockets they want to delve into – again…and now tell us that they have to reduce what meagre services we do have, to third world levels!
Sam likened the council’s scramble for loose change as fishing down the back of the sofa, but in the light of the proposal to eg. selective closures of public bogs, it is more like putting your arm down drains in the forlorn hope that some passer-by has a hole in their pocket. It is truly a pathetic, embarrassing, shameful reflection on the whole incestuous cabal – past and present, that has allowed our city to sink so low. Do they have no shame?
@ Robin Priest
There’s a very simple answer. It’s illegal for councils to spend government transport capital improvement grants on things like public toilets or running events.
PS The Dutch roundabout is a significant improvement against the old design which had an appalling safely record.
Addenbrookes should surely be out of the congestion charge area. People come in from Essex on the 1307 to go to Addenbrookes and to be charged £5 for the very short distance from the edge of Cambridge to the Hospital is shameful, since their visit may well be due to age and immobility. They are often brought in by car by a relative because they can’t cope with a bus ride. Also there is the penalisation of those leaving the city, especially if they are just within the boundary, and would never, ever consider taking a car into the City centre. I really cannot agree with the wide area covered – it is the centre that needs to be protected from excess traffic, not the suburbs.
The GCP have confirmed this morning that as a resident of Worts Causeway, if I drive from my house out in the Beech Woods direction I will be charged. If I go in the other direction and turn left towards Wandlebury I will be charged. So we will be charged for not contributing to the build up of traffic in the city centre.
I get this sounds like NIMBYism, it’s not intended to, it just feels counter intuitive …
For the avoidance of doubt, the Fendon Road roundabout project was undertaken by Cambs County Council, whereas the budget discussion I was flagging up is about the City Council proposals.
I would like to note that the way the GCP’s survey is written, it doesn’t actually give flexibility to choose multiple choice options against the scheme. All multiple choice options are written in a sneaky way to support the scheme and you can only go against the proposal in the non multiple choice options where you have to write down what you ate opposing and why. It is very poorly written and lacks the necessary neutrality that a public consultation form should have.
This is about removing cars – reducing your right to travel dramatically. Find out which councillors up for election on the 4th May are against the congestion charge and vote them in! vote out those for the congestion charge.
Ecology and looking after our environment is great – we all care – make individual choices to do so – top down draconian approaches erode democracyand freedoms are wrong, kills jobs and peoples futures – resist and protect your freedoms!