Winchester MP Steve Brine has expressed his relief after local Independent councillors joined Conservative councillors is amending the Winchester City Council budget.
Many across the city held deep reservations over Liberal Democrat proposals to increase Sunday parking charges, and end the free 30-minute parking period but both are set to be swept away from the end of March when the new budget taken effect.
Steve Brine said: "I am really pleased about this one. Businesses, the chamber of commerce and many city centre churches said it was a bad idea and will share my relief that the administration has been forced to change its plans.
"It seems there is a coalition in Winchester after all. The Conservatives and the Independents deserve credit for working together in the Winchester interest.”
At the budget setting Council meeting, held on Thursday 24th February, Winchester’s Conservative and Independent councillors also successfully voted to cancel the cuts the Liberal Democrats were going to make to grants to local organisations and the voluntary sector. The cost of these proposals has been offset by cancelling the glossy “Perspectives” council magazine and by postponing, not cancelling, the introduction of kerbside glass collection.
Conservative Group Leader, George Beckett, said: “This is not the time to cut the grants to organisations serving the less fortunate, the young, the elderly and the unemployed when we are asking them to help in David Cameron’s Big Society. Neither is it the time to make life more difficult for traders and employers by introducing a new stealth tax on the local economy.”
The introduction of Sunday parking charges had already been criticised by the Hampshire Chamber of Commerce, the Winchester Business Improvement District and the organisers of the Winchester Farmer’s Market, as well as local churches and other traders' groups.