Three examples of lack of forward planning by the Conservatives.

First example.  Loddon Bridge park and ride.   On page 109 of the agenda for the Executive meeting of 22nd February we read that the Loddon Bridge Park & Ride is to close on 4th February 2012.    But there is nothing about replacement park & rides in the capital vision until 2015/16.    A minimum 3 year gap. 

This gets more complicated.  Because although the agenda says it’s closing, maybe it isn’t.  The Lib Dems highlighted this last week, it’s been picked up by the media, and I was on BBC Radio Berks this morning talking about it.   The council now says it is still looking at negotiating with the land owners, National Amusements, who own the cinema.    It would be good if it could be kept open.  But the council have known the end date of the contract for 4 years now.  Shouldn’t they have advanced their planning a bit?    It’s like the bus subsidies they’ve just announced, for routes in Woodley and Earley.  They had an emergency contract for a year.  Now they have extended it for another few months because a year wasn’t long enough to get a new permanent contract ready.  Should they not have thought of that when they set the emergency contract up?  And the icing on the cake?  They didn’t actually go about getting the extension to the emergency contract until after the emergency contract had expired.   

Second example.  As we all know, the Executive have decided that in April 2012 residents are to be rationed to 80 black sacks of household rubbish a year.  But nothing is being done on “recycling initiatives” until 2014/15.    And we don’t mean by that collecting the black boxes every week instead of every fortnight.    We mean:  widen the range of stuff that can be recycled.  Otherwise you are collected the same amount of stuff twice as often, in other words, half the volume each visit, which is surely not so cost effective? 

Third example.  £410,000 of tax payers’ money is to be paid in “carbon penalties” because of the Executive’s reluctance to invest anything to make the council’s buildings more energy efficient.  Even though the Lib Dems pointed out 4 years ago that doing it would save the council money.    It is worth pointing out that the amount being spent on carbon penalties in the next 3 years almost exactly matches the amount being saved by axing travel tokens for the elderly over the same period.

And that really is ANNOYING.

 

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