Cutting town centre buses: another nail in the coffin?
Labour group leader Cllr Kate Hollern lays bare the impact of Tory/Liberal cuts to our buses.
I could not believe the arrogance of the Tory led coalition in Blackburn, firstly I raised concerns regarding the cuts to bus services right across the Borough. Typically the Tory Councillor for Regeneration, Allan Cottam restated that it his firm believe that bus company’s and pensioners have abused the concessionary fares system and over used the service, despite the fact that he gave away over £ 300K that the Labour Government gave this authority for concessionary fares, to Tory led authorities.
This suggests the service was actually under-used by the residents of Blackburn and we should be encouraging residents to use bus services that Jack Straw fought hard to secure funding for.
“It is not rocket science to understand that if there is no bus service and nowhere to park in the town centre people will go elsewhere. Market Traders and shops will pull out of Blackburn, leaving fewer options for residents, sending them to Preston or Bolton.”
The limp response from the Liberals, as with all the other cuts to service, is to support the Tory led administration, I don’t know if it is because they totally believe Tory policies, or they just want to hold onto their positions of power.
Regardless, the people of Blackburn will suffer. There will be no bus services in the Wensley Fold area; People who live in the Corporation Park Ward along with Shear Brow residents will also feel the effect. Queens Park, Bastwell, Mill Hill, Ewood, Shadsworth and Audley residents are also suffering from these cuts. Who knows which area will be next but you can bet it won’t be Livesey with Pleasington, Darwen or Beardwood with Lammack .
Then I raised the ludicrous suggestion of raising Market Traders rents by 40%, this will certainly help kill off Blackburn as shopping area. Yet the Council propose to spend thousands of pounds opposing Preston’s redevelopment. They should be concentrating on getting Blackburn more competitive rather than spending all this money on fighting Preston, shoppers need choice.
It is not rocket science to understand that if there is no bus service and nowhere to park in the town centre people will go elsewhere. Market Traders and shops will pull out of Blackburn, leaving fewer options for residents, sending them to Preston or Bolton and less people to contribute to the running costs of the town. Somebody has to pay for the huge increases increase in Officer’s salaries, They have just agreed to spend another £ 25k on increases to salaries of a few.
So who will pay, the residents of Blackburn will, either by reduced services, which we have seen a lot of recently, look at how dirty your streets are, or an increase in Council Tax, which the Tories are loath to do. They along with the Liberals want to continue to con people with small council tax increases but huge cuts in services,
If elected with a majority in the chamber, a Labour Council would put our money where our mouths are, we would subsidise bus routes, keep market rents at the same level for two years, until we have shown that the new market site can allow traders to pay for the cost of the new site.
Lets face it market traders can only pass on any increase to you the shoppers
We would get Blackburn firmly back on the map as somewhere to live and shop - on clean streets!
