Council’s unpleasant Christmas gift (From Crewe Guardian)

Cheshire East Council’s unpleasant Christmas gift

11:04am Monday 19th December 2011 in Letters

THERE is a really unpleasant Christmas present coming to the 24,000 disabled people in Cheshire East.

The council is using the cover of the festive season to launch a 500 per cent hike in the price of renewing the blue badge for their vehicles.

The price is going up from £2 to £10 from the start of 2012 – a big leap for a leap year.

This will provide the council with an extra £64,000 a year.

Instead it could have been achieved by cutting back on councillors’ special responsibility allowances.

But No, Clr Fitzgerald and some of his cabinet members cronies continue to enjoy their £2000 plus a month allowances, as well as expenses, while the disabled have to fork out an extra £8.

I am sure most of your readers will agree that blue badges should be provided free to those who need them.

This is because the holders are already very much disadvantaged by their reduced mobility.

This would save the cost of processing the cheques, which probably costs more than £10 anyway for this inefficient outfit.

The council press release says “the new badge will make it easier to park where those with mobility problems want to go”.

That is just not true.

The new badge provides exactly the same facilities as the old badge.

It just costs five times more than it did the year before. So the council is bullying the most vulnerable, trying to hide it all during Christmas and putting spin about it as well.

Par for the course for this uncaring Tory bunch.

David Brickhill, Independent Borough Councillor for Shavington.

In the council accounting year 2010 to 2011, councillors received a basic allowance of £12,000. Councillors with special responsibility received additional allowances ranging from £400 to £28,000 for the leader of the council.

Portfolio holders received and additional allowance of £14,000.