Disability-friendly parking meters cost £199k
INSTALLING disability-friendly marking meters has cost taxpayers £199,000, the Echo can reveal.
The 56 new machines were installed after the City of Lincoln Council decided to start charging blue badge holders to use its car parks.
The controversial charges were introduced by City Hall in April last year, despite strong opposition from the Labour party.
And the new meters were brought in after some disabled motorists complained that they were unable to use the existing parking meters.
But leader of the opposition, Councillor Ric Metcalfe has criticised the cost, saying the public purse has paid for a project which has been completely ill- considered.
"We have always been opposed to the idea of removing the free disabled parking as we feel it has been completely ill-considered," he said.
"We find £199,000 for these machines to be an incredible amount of money. The high spend comes at a time when the council needs to make savings.
"We certainly think the cash spent on these machines would have been better spent on keeping free services for disabled drivers, rather than installing machines that weren't wanted."
The money for the new machines came from cash generated through car parking fees and charges.
According to Coun Metcalfe, council officials are expecting the disabled parking charges to generate £100,000 per year. But records of how many disabled people use city car parks have never been kept, making the projections a "shot in the dark", he said.
But Councillor Marc Jones, portfolio holder for planning policy and economic regeneration at the council, said: "The details of this decision – including the costs – were made available to all councillors, but were not questioned.
"The old machines, around 10 years old, were not as accessible as we wanted them to be."
For more, see Monday's Echo.
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by Cameron, lincoln
Tuesday, March 16 2010, 5:13PM
“who do you suggest then as a credible alternative Cyril? There's one Liberal Councillor that nobody ever sees, the British Fascists and then the other pond life......and Gedge, it cost much, much less than 200K to update the machines, the real waste of Council tax payers money was the machines themselves and the legal charges....would never had happened if some nasty spark hadn't wanted to charge for disabled parking....but that's arrogance for you, doesn't come cheap!”
by Mr Sneer, Derision on the Wold
Tuesday, March 16 2010, 10:03AM
“"Neglecting the wishes of the electorate is a dangerous road to tread."
Yes, and hopefully Gillian Merron will reap that particular reward in the next few weeks.
However, I digress. Lincoln City Council has always been completely useless, regardless of whether the Labour chowderheads or the Tory chowderheads are in charge. This is because the quality of councillors is generally sub-standard across the board. Ric Metcalfe is as big a waste of flesh as Darren Grice is, the only difference is the way in which they go about messing things up.
You get the council deserve. And as long as you insist on voting Labour or Tory because you're too stupidly blinkered to do otherwise, that will be a poor one.”
by Cameron, lincoln
Tuesday, March 16 2010, 8:19AM
“the 199K the Echo quote is the cost of the actual new machines...it cost even more to change and update the machines (why not make a few enquiries, its puiblic information) and as for the cost of settling with Matt Smith, that was even more money!
Guess who paid for that?
How ever you turn it around - yep it's Lincoln Council tax payers....
Peeke referred to "cripples" at the Council meeting. An Echo reporter was present and heard it. He had to apologise because the Council's legal team told him to, Councllors are meant to know better than to make a comment like that....
and he's one of Lincoln's Councillors??????”
by Colin, Coningsby
Monday, March 15 2010, 6:57PM
“There is a very easy way to sort out this profligate council. How dare they spend £199,000 without reference to anybody outside their own cosy group! Put an executive mayor in place. A referendum is needed to do this and in order to have a referendum a petition needs to be put in. We need to get organised and finally sort out these local authorities. The problem is how we get organised to do the petition. Is it possible for the Lincolnshire Echo to help with this, both for Lincoln and East Lindsey District Council. It's time we all did something other than just moan.”
by Hannah James, Lincoln
Monday, March 15 2010, 5:30PM
“What did Peeke say in the council meeting that was derogatory to disabled people?
Anyone know why he had to withdraw his comment and apologise?”