Ely Car Park Petition To Be Debated By Council

By ElyNewshound | Monday, February 20, 2012, 12:14

A petition opposing the introduction of car parking charges to Ely will be debated by East Cambridgeshire District Council this week.

East Cambridgeshire District Council will finally debate the 12,000-signature petition opposing the introduction of car parking charges to Ely

The 'Say No To Parking Charges In Ely' petition, containing 12,000 signatures, was delivered to East Cambs District Council in December. The council's legal department subsequently chose to spend two weeks verifying the petition against the electoral register (an optional procedure for councils) and used various means of discounting signatures. This process included eliminating people who had not filled in their full address details, something that even this Ely People correspondent had failed to do. Yet, after a detailed assessment, the council verified the petition at 10,200 signatures – also confirming that over 8,000 of this number were residents of the district, with the remainder being attributed to 'visitors'.

With such a vote of popular support, the Ely Traders' Association feels that the council now has to listen to the wishes of the people of East Cambridgeshire. Says ETA spokesman Andrew Olley: "All that the community asks is that the town centre, which is brimming with independent trade, be given an even chance. If the council ignores this massive petition from the people of the whole district, it will be an act of cynical disregard. A completely unnecessary act of careless vandalism, which will signal the demise of this beautiful Cathedral city centre."

When handing in the petition, the Ely Traders Association had called for a local referendum on the introduction of car parking charges, plus a full impact study on the effect such charges would have on the city. However, the council has refused to accept the petition as grounds for these requests, claiming signatories were only asked whether they opposed charges and not whether they agreed with either a referendum or an impact study. Instead, the council has agreed to debate the ETA's petition and proposals at the Council Chamber on Thursday February 23, 2012 at 6.30pm.

The Ely Traders Association believe that the council might not want to openly defy such a high profile call from its local community and will try to defer the decision on the petition to a transport sub committee where the leader of the council Peter Moakes is chair.

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Comments

The correspondence from the council stated: "In terms of statutory guidance 'Listening To Communities: Statutory Guidance On The Duty To Respond To Petitions' March 2010, it states… that the Local Authorities can choose to verify and must take into account the signatures of people who provide valid addresses where they live, work or study within the local authority area, but authorities may take account of signatures who do not supply such information. This Council does undertake verification and in that process looks at the numbers of "local people"… to ensure that minimum numbers have signed the petition."

By ElyNewshound at 13:43 on 20/02/12
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They spent two weeks *optionally* verifying signatures? Sounds like they have a few too many staff with nothing to do. Maybe if they weren't so woefully inefficient they wouldn't need to contemplate parking charges.

By jowlymonster at 13:28 on 20/02/12
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