THE North East region is the poorest, most deprived region in the country.
Along with Middlesbrough and Hartlepool, South Tyneside has
for decades shared top billing in the North East for child poverty, jobless numbers and deprivation.
Our Labour council readily slags off any Government that’s not Labour, yet this has been our lot for decades, ad finitum.
Can Labour councils and eternal deprivation be connected?
Our leaders seem determined to deter anyone coming into South Shields town centre in a car.
Bus lanes dominate, even after 11pm when all the buses are empty and the shops closed hours ago.
Venture into a bus lane and you are fined.
The new regime of parking enforcement is as voracious as the last APCOA lot.
Some £100m is to be spent on regeneration, yet the same blinkered approach to motorists is proposed – they just don’t want them in town.
At least the council leaders in Middlesbrough are waking up to the fact that cars have spacious boots, and generally carry more than one person shopping.
This week, Middlesbrough starts a town centre parking experiment for seven months until mid-September, where the first two hours is free anywhere in the town centre.
Why can’t the people in our Town Hall look around – charity shops abound, bookies thrive, retail outlets are closing every week; we are dying here.
It’s crystal-clear to any intelligent person – make it easy to park close to shops and make it free, and people will shop. But will they listen in the Town Hall – what do you think?
Colin Campbell,
Cleadon.
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