Parking Hell

Big turnout for last nights Cabinet meeting with Cllrs King, Watkins, Worrow, Driver, Campbell, M Tomlinson and Edwards along with the motley frontbenches and a bucketload of officials. A few of us commoners turned up too...


The Royal Sands agenda item was deferred till an Extraordinary Cabinet meeting to be held on 5th April owing to discussions over the past days meaning more time is needed. 


Onto the Draft Corporate Plan. Cllr Wise seemed to make the strongest points though I got the impression the Cabinet wasnt really listening to the criticism, however good the argument being put. Wise's point that he "want to see what you are going to do", seemed to go over their heads. Overview made the same point with Jo Gideon being particularly sharp back then. It was pointed out by Iris Johnston that work started back in September but even that ignores the fact that Labour's had this for 3 months now and could have changed it to whatever they wanted, which we can see they have. Passing this off as the fault of the Tories doesn't really work.


East Kent Opportunities up next with a bit of miscommunication. Driver spoke here asking about the TDC liability for EKO should it go under. Iris Johnston was side-stepping Driver's assumption that EKO was going under though she admitted there "has to be a Plan B". The liability incidentally was revealed at Overview a while back to be around £2.5m.


Onto Parking fees. Cabinet voted Option 2 aka Linear Lite. Final Approval will come at Full Council on 19th April. A shouting argument kicked off during this item, with Campbell making a comment that wasnt welcomed by Chris Wells as he was talking about what he saw as a "shoddy" report into the Birchington stuff. Bit of shouting with even Clive Hart seeming to lose his cool a bit. If ever there was a visible sign that this sort of thing is no good, a member of the public left the meeting at that point. 


Other items went with little serious debate. Bit of an argument about Budget projections relating to the reserves but I want to properly digest the report first so it makes sense when I blog about it.