| Dear <<First Name>> <<Last Name>> (<<Ward>>),
Please don’t desert your colleague in his hour of need.
You will have no doubt by now received a copy of the letter sent by your colleague Cllr Danny Chalkley to me, as Chairman of the campaign against motorcycle parking taxes (if not, download a copy here), and with it being so littered with blatant hypocrisy, like everyone else who has read it, I feel sure that you would have preferred it if he had consulted you before sending it.
Mind you, this is not the first instance that such a charge of hypocrisy could be levelled against Cllr Chalkley. One only has to go back to December last year, when, in an Evening Standard article, he called on the Mayor to provide more C-Charge free days prior to Xmas. Only Cllr Chalkley could not see that by asking, whilst not providing any concession whatsoever on behalf of WCC, such blatant hypocrisy would render him such a total embarrassment and liability to you all.
With this in mind, it comes as no surprise to us that he again cannot see his own blatant hypocrisy in his letter.
Only he could introduce an “experimental” scheme that:-
- is firstly without any clear evidence of an “experiment”.
- aims to keep the charge at £1.50 per day for the next 3 years (which he has declared publicly), when any such “experiment” can only ever run for a maximum of 18 months.
- forces hard-pressed citizens, used to parking for free as a reward for their contribution to alleviating the problems of inner-city congestion & pollution, to now pay a tax under threat of PCN, Court Fees and removal of property by Bailiffs, and then accuse OTHERS of employing bully-boy tactics.
- has not only (on a daily basis) deterred another group of casual visitors together with the income they would generate for the local economy, but has also removed over £2.5m since August 2008, and then accuse OTHERS of “damaging the West End economy”.
- requires citizens used to parking and leaving their vehicles to now wait whilst contacting a call-centre by mobile phone to register and pay, and then accuse OTHERS of “disrupting many Londoners”.
- runs totally contrary to WCC’s sister borough, Kensington & Chelsea who, in recognising how their own parking restrictions have exacerbated the effect of the Credit Crunch on its local traders, have proposed free parking for ALL vehicles on a Saturday, whilst he accuses OTHERS of “hindering hard pressed retailers”.
For anyone to commit such a level of political-suicide in this manner can only highlight how far isolated he must have become from the rest of you, his fellow Councillors, which has left even us asking why you guys have deserted him so demonstrably.
Is it because of his attempts at soliciting internal Councillor support for his scheme involved claiming it as being “Revenue-neutral” in a concerted effort to conceal its stealth-taxing aspects, which have now been so publicly exposed?
Or that he claimed to need £985k implementation costs, to thereby justify charging, when he knew he only needed £23k for increasing the parking capacity? NB – the same price as a Civic Dinner at Lancaster House.
Or that his stealth-tax has so isolated WCC from the Conservative Party on this issue, whereby the BEST they are prepared to say publicly is:
“Please note that this is not a policy set by the Conservative Party nationally but a local policy decided by Westminster councillors. I hope that this will not be replicated widely". ~ Robert Goodwill MP, Shadow Roads Minister
“I have arranged a meeting with Councillor Chalkley to discuss this……… I am a member of the All Party Motor Cycle Group and we are keen to prevent Westminster’s lead being followed around the Country.” ~ Robert Goodwill MP, Shadow Roads Minister.
Only Cllr Chalkley could not see how embarrassing this stealth-tax is for the Conservative Party, especially when they have been so quick to label the Labour-run Council that wanted to trial a “bin-tax” as blatant “stealth-taxers”, and threatening to expel any Conservative Local Councillor who supported such a scheme.
Is it that he has now placed WCC in such a contrary position to that of every other Authority as regard transport planning, so much so that even the Conservative Mayor has publicly expressed his reservations:
“As you will be aware I have stated that, where possible, I do not want to dictate to the boroughs in areas where the remit for action lies with them. However, I am keen to encourage the use of motorcycles in London, as evidenced by my recent announcement to allow motorcycles in bus lanes on the TLRN. I will ask TfL to discuss with Westminster as to whether the introduction of this payment has led to a reduction in the number of people using motorcycles in central London.” Mayor Boris Johnson in response to Question 446/2009
Or is it that his scheme so unnerves junior managers that they feel obliged to misrepresent the true value of tax on national television, in a desperate attempt to make it sound somehow reasonable?
Whatever your reasons, there is no doubting he desperately needs your guidance now.
For any Councillor to write to the head of a Protest group claiming to firstly accept their right to protest, but to then ask them not to because the protest might, on a small scale, have the same effect as the initiative it opposes it simply incredulous.
Then, clearly in his delusion, he purports to “making this letter public” without ever considering where or how. We have taken on ourselves to try to help him by publishing it on our website, and all the websites of our supporters, and hence we ask you to take our lead and help Cllr Chalkley before he totally self-destructs and causes more damage to the reputation of what was once known as the Conservative Party’s flagship borough.
Perhaps its now time that one of you did the sensible thing and had a quiet word with Cllr Chalkley. Explain how all the resentment against him and the rest of WCC is a direct result of his miserably-failed experiment, and that all he has to do is scrap the tax and we can all get back to our normal lives.
Yours
Warren Djanogly,
Chairman NTBPT Campaign |
