West End Letters: Cllr Paul Dimoldenberg | threat to traders | " economic recovery" | parking charges | shopkeepers

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West End Extra - LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Published: 08 May 2009

Charges are a threat to traders

• SO, Westminster Conservatives claim they have an “economic recovery” programme.
Try telling that to shopkeepers in Marylebone where the city council, which already imposes the highest parking charges in the United Kingdom, will be increasing parking charges by 33 per cent, from £3 an hour to £4 an hour.
Shopkeepers elsewhere in Westminster fare little better with 10 per cent increases planned for this month.
At a time of economic difficulties it makes no sense to increase parking charges for shoppers visiting the West End.
A 33 per cent increase in parking charges will hit shops in Marylebone particularly hard and with 10 per cent increases in Paddington, St John’s Wood, Bayswater, Pimlico and Soho, the retail trade all over Westminster will be hit hard.
The Conservatives’ so-called “economic recovery” plan is nothing more than spin and nonsense.
How can shops be expected to survive when parking charges go up by 33 per cent?
How can it make sense to spend £1.8 million on fountains at Marble Arch and then charge people an extra £1 an hour to park?
Do the Conservatives think that we are all stupid?
Or do they live in a make-believe world of their own?
Cllr Paul Dimoldenberg
Leader of the Labour Group

Send your letters to: The Letters Editor, West End Extra, 40 Camden Road, London, NW1 9DR or email to letters@westendextra.co.uk. The deadline for letters is midday Wednesday. The editor regrets that anonymous letters cannot be published, although names and addresses can be withheld.
Please include a full name, postal address and telephone number.
Letters may be edited for reasons of space.

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