Wolverhampton Tories and Lib Dems do a deal
Last night, Wolverhampton’s Conservatives and Liberal Democrats came to an agreement that will see the Tories run the city council with support from the Lib Dems.
Neville Patten - the new leader of the council - gave <a href=”http://thestirrer.co.uk/red-route-scrapped-0805081.html/”>the details to The Stirrer</a>, where he revealed the following:
<ul>
<li>The unpopular and ineffective A449 red route in Fordhouses will be scrapped.</li>
<li>Kerbside plastic and cardboard recycling will finally come to the city and they’re promising within three months.</li>
<li>There’ll be a review of youth services with the suggestion of more facilities for teenagers.</li>
</ul>
That’s on top of their commitment to lower council tax. I’m hoping to interview Neville Patten on tomorrow’s Wolverhampton Politics Show.
‘The A449 red route will be scrapped,’ I feel sums up what the problem is. Let’s not forget there was a purpose to this red route. There was a purpose to spending all that time and money on installing the red route. It seems most frustration is that the route is a contradiction from the start. No parking on the red route to allow two lanes of traffic to flow freely into Wolverhampton… except for in this and this condition. So rather than there being a mass of cars parked up there is just one or two which equally block the traffic rendering the red route pointless. I don’t think the route is to blame, and i don’t think scraping it is a valid solution. Clear, un-complicated rules along with some form of enforcement. Scrapping it is going to cause a bigger long term problem with traffic entering the city, surly. May I ask what they think will happen when the i54 is completed? The express and star quoted the following figures, ‘Remember the cost of Red Route to the taxpayer – £1.7 million for installing it plus £1.3 million paid to the consultants.’ excuse me for being disgusted at the idea of scrapping that. Money well spent? Equally it seems the only thing the writer wanted to do was highlight the failures of the project which is not productive nor needed. This needs to be addressed and taken seriously, I think it is essential especially once the i54 is completed that there are two consistent flows of traffic into the city.