Eastbourne Lib-Dem Parking Hypocrisy whilst Motorists Suffer

Reading this week's local newspaper, one could be forgiven for thinking that there must be an local election on the horizon as our local Lib-Dems start banging the parking drum again as the deadline approaches for residents to let East Sussex County Council know their views about the review of our local parking scheme.

Eastbourne residents may remember the broken promises of Stephen Lloyd's local Lib-Dems who prior to the last two elections, promised to block the parking scheme. Not only did they fail to do so but they prevented the Eastbourne Council's own parking areas from being included in the town wide scheme, allowing them to increase the areas local motorists can be charged to park and charge them more.

During the winter months, the East Sussex scheme substantially reduced the cost of parking on the seafront to help businesses brave the most challenging months of the year in our tourist town but greedy Eastbourne Lib-Dems carried on charging full price!

Whilst the Lib-Dem smoke and mirrors spin machine cranks up a gear, their MP's continue to hinder progress on the much needed A27 improvements between Polegate and Lewes that could really unlock Eastbourne's potential for business and tourism. Eastbourne MP Stephen Lloyd maintains a deathly silence on this important issue and neighbouring MP for Polegate & Lewes, Norman Baker has a record of consistently campaigning against these much needed improvements after successfully convincing the New Labour Government elected in 1997 to cancel the previously approved Conservative improvement plans for the A27.

Renewed calls for A27 improvements have come about as the Highways Agency quango recently invested over £1m putting a new cycle way down between Beddingham and Firle which Norman Baker seemed to take great pleasure in launching whilst motorists continue to suffer on this heavily congested stretch of road.