Put an end to this propaganda

Posted By: Ibrar Khan
Date Posted: 06/05/2009

Councillor Peter Evans is wrong on so many accounts in his latest councillor diary that I am writing to put the record straight.

It seems that the Lib Dems are obsessed with the Labour Candidate, Simon Danczuk. Councillor Mulgrew decided to insult Mr Danczuk in the council chamber last week, leaflets are currently being distributed attacking him and now Councillor Evans joins in with a total misrepresentation of his suggestions over the free-parking policy.

Simon has campaigned on this for some time now – and handed out thousands of leaflets at the town hall car boot sale on the Easter Bank Holiday calling for two hours free parking at any time in the town centre. This was very well received. As Simon rightly says, businesses open at 9am in Rochdale, not 3pm. Most people have done their shopping by then.

I will reserve judgement on whether Councillor Couzens’ scheme will be a success or not. But as a note of caution Rochdale Online readers might like to see what the Lib Dems in Chester said last year when the ‘free after three’ scheme was introduced there.

The Lib Dems claimed the “headline seeking Free after Three policy” created greater rush hour congestion on Chester's roads without having any effect at all on business in Chester.

On the subject of “sensible regeneration”, it’s hard to take anything that Councillor Evans says seriously. He talks of investment being unaffordable then fails to acknowledge the hundreds of thousands of pounds wasted by his Lib Dem administration on Rochdale’s abandoned town centre regeneration scheme. He must be the only person in the world who thinks that a massively above inflation council tax rise is in fact a “low council tax” and he has the cheek to blame Rochdale town centre’s decline on Gordon Brown when it is a Labour Government that has provided millions of pounds of investment money for Rochdale. It’s just a shame that the Lib Dems are incapable of delivering these schemes.

The only thing he gets right is his observation that “the politicians who got us all into this mess have not said sorry". Will we get an apology from anyone in the Lib Dems on the hundreds of thousands of pounds they wasted on a failed regeneration scheme that has to be re-run all over again? I wouldn’t hold your breath.

Councillor Evans might like to pretend his colleagues are delivering a sensible and prudent plan. But this is tripe. Does he believe that well over a quarter of a million pounds being spent on Directors of Transformation, re-branding schemes and new Lib Dem offices in the town hall would not be better spent on giving more free parking, better support for local businesses and a proper Feel Good festival that helps brings confidence and a sense of fun back to our town?