Parking / Lets Talk Meetings

On the 12th July 2011 Central Bedfordshire issued a press release entitled, "Public to be consulted on parking management proposals."

This included a paragraph which says:

Local councillors, including parish councils, and key stakeholder groups such as the Chamber of Commerce are to be consulted on the proposals over a three month period. Exhibitions will be held at key locations across Central Bedfordshire as part of the consultation. Details of this will be announced soon.

I have been asking Basil Jackson, CBC, Assistant Director, Highways & Transport since 26th August 2011, when the consultation is to take place. I have finally received a response.

Firstly, I wish to apologise for the delay in responding to your request. ***** has been very busy with the parking consultation and prioritising it amongst his other daily duties as Head of Service. Nevertheless, this has still taken longer to deal with than I would expect.

In the first instance, *****  had requested from some local companies to prepare a presentation for consultation purposes. This included a road show type approach, which would have been heavily advertised allowing capture of as many residents in one go as possible. The quotes for this piece of work have just recently come back to ***** and we have been very surprised at the extraordinarily high prices we have received. The sums of money discussed are not justified and it would be irresponsible for the authority to spend council tax payers' money to that extent.

This has of course led ***** to think of another approach and he has since written a consultation paper which is going to be delivered at the Central Bedfordshire Lets Talk Together Meetings through this year and in to next. Between ***** and I, we agreed that this was the best approach to deliver to as many residents in Central Bedfordshire as possible as the meetings are well advertised through our website, council publications and locally.

The date and location for the next local meeting is as follows:

Thursday 20th October 2011

Potton Sports & Social Club

The Hollow, Biggleswade Road, Potton

7.00pm to 7.45pm Talk to a range of service providers, including your local policing team, Councillors & other agencies.

8.00pm to 9.00pm Join the debate. Discuss local issues, solutions, and help decide the community safety priorities to be tackled.

This hour will start with a welcome speech from the Chairman, District Councillor for Biggleswade North Ward &  Deputy Leader and Executive Member for Corporate Resources,  Maurice Jones. He will speak on the progress made on the issues raised at the last meeting.

At 8.10pm  the Chairman will present budget strategy for 2012 / 2013. Followed by Bedfordshire Police who will speak on community safety issues.

At 8.30pm, car parking will be discussed, followed by discussions and questions on local issues.