The proposed exclusion zone for vehicles in Ludlow’s town centre will benefit no one except Shropshire Council’s coffers from yet more parking fines. It is overkill. Heavy handed regulation of the type in currently vogue in Shirehall.
We don’t need this. There is a recognised problem with inconsiderate parking in the market area. There is also a problem with drivers not knowing where they can park or where they will get a penalty charge notice.
But this doesn’t need to be solved with the over the top scheme Shropshire Council is proposing.
The council wants five foot high signs in the middle of one of Britain’s most historical town centres. It wants a one way system on streets that maybe see just a few vehicles a week. Enforced by more signs. And more fines.
There is a simpler way of resolving the issues we face with inconsiderate parking in Ludlow’s market area. We can put in demountable bollards. Benches that can be moved for major events. More planters for Ludlow in Bloom to ensure that we continue to win gold status every year. These are solutions that will enhance the quality of the town centre, not clutter it up with signs and drive visitors off with penalty charge notices.
And so centralisation continues its march to decide our needs by officials who do not live in the town.
It seems to be ever since Thatcher started disbanding representative bodies it gets worse and worse, at least with SSDC we could go see the decision makers and they were there.
This is simply an issue that needs to be handed over to Town Concil…
note to County Council – stop making decisions that hurt our town , ask the locally elected officials to decide what they want done even if you have the power to intefere
Amen to that. Would a petition to the County Council, signed by many thousands of Ludlow residents, councillors, traders and others who use the town for its many amenities, carry any weight?
Any chance we can restore local government to Ludlow,
in the form of South Shropshire District Council or similar? As I recall, in those days we ran a budget that was in credit but since then local CT payers have been funding the morons at Shirehall to run up a huge deficit, such is their level of incompetence – and the prissy manner with which they seek to lecture us from above and afar. What a ghastly bunch. They certainly can’t count on my vote in local elections – and I speak as a traditional Conservative voter.
A further thought …
In November 2018, Shropshire Star published a letter from Council chief executive, Clive Wright, in which he tells staff that they must work from home one day a month as part of a spending freeze. At the time, Shropshire Council was running a deficit of £6.9m on a gross budget of £561.95m.
The freeze on spending followed an earlier report that councillors had approved a 50% pay increase for their chief executive worth £47,000, taking his salary with benefits to £150,000 – thus catapulting him into the top three earners amongst council chiefs in the region. His staff received lesser increases of between two and nine percent.
The salary Mr Wright receives appears less about his performance as chief executive of Shropshire Council and more about achieving parity with the pay scales of other council leaders, regardless of performance.
Is this state of acceptable to Ludlow CT payers? Do we accept being micromanaged from afar – you could call it ‘mismanaged’ – by those put their own financial interests before the interests of those of us who pay their salaries?
Should Shropshire Council have control over Ludlow’s parking arrangements – in these days of devolved government? And who agrees with me that Ludlow was a more vibrant, economically more successful and generally happier place to live before the status of Unitary Authority was imposed on us over 10 years’ ago?