Traffic should drop 'anti-car' pay plan

THE Traffic Committee must decide whether it wants to continue to battle motorists. 'I believe the committee has got to consider its position seriously and decide whether it is one that is taking an anti-motorist stance or representing the whole community ' motorists, pedestrians and cyclists,' said St Martin's deputy Bill Bell.

'I believe the message States members have given on a number of occasions is that they don't want paid parking and that's got to be accepted.'

Its second attempt to set a rate for long-term parking in Town was defeated by 30 votes to 20 in the House on Thursday.

Deputy Bell said the committee must now accept that members did not want it.

The money raised from paid parking, which was estimated at '470,000 a year, would have funded other strands of the integrated road transport strategy.

The committee was left without any extra money to pay for these when members resoundingly rejected a bid to use money from General Revenue.

'There are other matters in the strategy they can get on with without difficulty and their successors next May will have to produce a revised policy on how to implement the rest of it without paid parking.'

He said the committee should look carefully at bus subsidies ' which have increased in the last two years ' to ensure they were at an appropriate level.

'Funding has been approved for next year but a decision has to be made whether 20p is right or if 50p might be as attractive.

'I think we have the cheapest fares in Europe, can we afford to have fares as low as that?'

But Deputy Ann Robilliard, the chairman of pedestrian safety group Steps, believed the strategy, including paid parking, was the right move.

She agreed with Deputy Mellor that next year's general election swayed the way some members voted.

'I think there were a lot of unprincipled deputies who were electioneering,' she said.

'They accepted it's the right thing to do, but weren't prepared to put their money where their mouths are. And I think the losers are the people of Guernsey and that's the great sadness of the situation.'