MAYOR George Ferguson is facing a growing clamour for him to resign over the Residents’ Parking Scheme (RPS) fiasco.
More than 2,200 people have already signed an online petition expressing ‘No Confidence’ in the Mayor and many more have put their names to a hard-copy version of the same document.
It now looks very likely the 3,500-signature threshold will be crossed, triggering a debate at full council, probably in late July.
But the Liberal Democrats’ deputy leader and transport spokesman on the council, Christian Martin, is pressing for a No Confidence motion to be put to the vote as part of the debate. At the moment, it is not clear that that would happen before September, at the earliest. “It must happen as a priority debate before schemes that are going in become irreversible because of cost. We are already seeing mistakes made that because of the speed of implementation ordered by the Mayor are costing us money such as the pay and display meter being sited in the middle of the pavement in Easton. The city cannot afford ‘implement in haste and repent at leisure’ RPS schemes.”
“It’s time for the Mayor to face the music. His Residents’ Parking Scheme has been poisoning political debate in this city for more than a year. Yet still he will not listen to the people of Bristol,” said Councillor Martin (Clifton East).
“At the March full council meeting the working group of councillors set up to look at the way RPS was being introduced reported to the Mayor. He said he would give his response at the end of March. We still haven’t heard from him.
“In the proposed Clifton RPS zone, some of which is in my ward, residents are telling me they have responded to the consultation only to be given no answers to their many questions.
“This must be happening all over the central part of the city, where the Mayor is forcing these schemes through. Where I live in Montpelier, where a consultation is going on at
the moment, serious concerns are again being met with official silence.”
“In the last week alone, half a dozen people have approached me for help getting their questions answered.”
“One major area of concern is Blue Badge drivers. No one seems to be able to tell them where they will be able to park and where they won’t.”
“So far as anyone outside the council can tell, disabled drivers will only be able to park in specially designated bays, in pay-and-display bays and in shared use bays. That’s not enough.”
“It is also far from clear where Blue Badge drivers will be able to park without having to cadge a visitor’s permit or feed a parking meter.
“George Ferguson has tweeted that people who raise these concerns are misleading the public. That’s disgraceful. They are simply demanding clarity about his plans, plans that from the outset have been wrought with confusion and riddled with frustration. After listening it’s an expectation that there will be ‘action’ ergo changes as per residents and business concerns – a year ago we were promised bespoke schemes – we’re still getting one size fits all!”
