Latest letter to SKDC Leader, Linda Neal

Dear Mrs Neal,
Thank you for re-iterating your political commitment on this issue, and for doing this so promptly.


In the context of LCC’s Parking Policy being signed off at the end of last year, and your previously stated commitment, I believe that there was an expectation that by March this year you would not be addressing meetings of Stamford Residents with phrases such as “there is nothing SKDC can do to initiate a scheme”. Quite the contrary. The expectation was that you would be saying something like “My officers have been working on a draft consultation document which should be approved by Cabinet next week and be published early next month, with a view to having a policy in place by……”.

I note that below you state “We are looking to work with residents…” – you should already be working with residents by now – we’ve asked you enough times!
We are now three months on from the adoption of LCC’s parking policy and potentially only six months away from the introduction of CPE and yet you cannot point to a specific plan of work being carried out by you and your officers to specific planned deadlines. This is simply not good enough, and I hope that you will now immediately take the necessary steps to remedy this. 

We have received some reassurance from LCC that once an application has been made to them for a scheme it will be expedited quickly at their end. We are in contact with them about it and are building a constructive relationship with them. Therefore, so far as we are concerned, the major issues now are that SKDC needs to hurry up and prepare an application for a scheme and that so far it has done precious little work towards it.

I hope that you will be able to respond to this positively by publishing a specific plan of action, which your Cabinet has committed to, at the earliest opportunity.

Finally, I should reiterate our belief that there must be a residents’ exemption permit scheme in place at the point when on-street LCC enforcement commences.
Yours sincerely,
Richard Cleaver