Kentwood Conservatives

This morning there were Remembrance Services and Parades across Reading. The Mayor, Deputy Mayor and both Borough MPs, Alok Sharma and Rob Wilson, attended the service at Brock Barracks on Oxford Road. They were joined by councillors from all parties, including Kentwood councillor Emma Warman, as well as former Mayors and the Borough police commander.

After the service, the parade ground saw a march past of veterans, serving personnel and cadet groups. The large Gurkha contingent again received a warm welcome from the watching crowd.

Anyone reading the local papers recently will have noticed the controversy about bus lane fines. There are actually two slightly separate issues:

1. the recent installation of a camera in the short bus lane on Norcot Road;
2. the Labour administration’s apparent reliance on income from bus lane fines to balance its budget this year.

Norcot Road

There is a width restriction on Norcot Road to prevent larger vehicles from using the route.  To enforce the size restriction there is a road narrowing as you approach the roundabout at the entry to the Potteries estate. However, this is on the No. 17 bus route – the flagship route of Reading Buses. Therefore, in order to allow the buses to pass, there is a short bus lane circumventing the width restriction on either side of the road.

The lane restriction has been in place for around 25 years but recently we were alerted to safety concerns arising from people using the bus lane to avoid going through the width restricted part of the road. In particular there were problems with people coming out of the bus lane into the roundabout without yielding priority to vehicles coming from the right. We therefore asked Council officers to look into the issue.

Some people are obviously unhappy about the bus lane enforcement as they are no longer able to use this instead of taking the route that they were always supposed to take. But it is puzzling that people driving ordinary cars feel the need to use the bus lane at all – there is no problem at all driving a car through the restriction and I’ve also seen plenty of larger vehicles such as transit vans driving through with no problem. Also, there are plenty of signs and road markings – it is abundantly clear that it is a bus lane.

I do understand that for some drivers of medium sized vehicles there is a concern that the width restriction may in fact be slightly less than the 6’6” declared on the signs – and we will take this up with Council officers to check.

Bus Lanes – Labour’s cash cow

The increase in fines from May this year is staggering.

In April 2011 there were 2,282 penalty notices – this compared to 2,713 for the same period last year. However, May’s penalties were up by 129% compared to May 2010 (8,289 vs 1,901). The trend continued and appeared to peak in June and July where there were a total of 23,355 fines issued in the two months, compared to only 4,385 in June and July last year.

The figures are mind-boggling and there are surely questions to be answered – for instance we were not aware of any particular change in enforcement policy, or the classification of bus lanes, or the signage. So why should there be such a difference in the number of fines this year?

Secondly, the revenue from these fines seems to be basically keeping the Environment, Culture & Sport Directorate (ENCAS) budget in the black. Without it, there’d be a significant hole. We are concerned that the Labour Council seems to be so dependent on bus lane fines to balance the budget this year.

Clearly continued income from fines is not guaranteed and even if it helps this Labour Administration scrape through this year, it is really not sustainable for next year. We are concerned that this is masking the Labour Administration’s failure to make ends meet.

Some residents of Stone Street and Ivydene Road have suffered from flooding over a number of years. We have been speaking to residents and Thames Water to try to find a solution to the problem.

Thames Water have agreed to attend a meeting with residents and councillors.

We are waiting for a date and time to be confirmed – but in the meantime if you live in the area and are affected by this issue please let us know so that we can contact you with the details of the meeting.

This is the website for the three Conservative councillors in Kentwood Ward, Reading.