Uxbridge Gazette 09/06
Posted by: hillingdonfirst on: June 10, 2009
The Uxbridge Gazette has run a story about the HillingdonFirst card scheme. It is not very detailed despite this being a very intrusive and undemocratic scheme.
In the piece, Cllr. Mills says that our data can be stored up to 6 years, but won’t be kept any longer than necessary. This is interesting as the FOI request here explicitly states it will be kept for 6 years, not up to 6 years. How will the council define what is necessary?
“If people honestly believe that this will change people’s shopping habits it just doesn’t stack up. It’s a non-argument.
Oh! Well that’s ok then. This seems to be the style of leadership that Hillingdon take on these sorts of issues, especially Cllr. Mills. You can see his view he takes again and again that his decisions are right, no matter what others may think (including his own constituents). Where is the research to back up your claims Councilor? What reports were done to show how many ‘outsiders’ are now going to clog up our residential roads even more, rather than pay to use the car parks (or is that so you can add more residential permits zones)? What research has been done, at all?
This does not include the cost of installing new solar powered parking machines, but the council has said the machines needed replacing anyway.
This argument was used in an earlier response from Cllr. SSD. Again, the question is why were the meters to be replaced? They were less than 5 years old. They (Hillingdon Council*) are either lying now, or someone made a mistake buying them – which is it?
Under 18s who drive can register for a card.
This is the first time this has been mentioned – why is that? It is not in any of the FOI requests and Under-18 use was not mentioned until the Terms & Conditions of the card were issued – is it because the scheme is ill thought out and they are scrabbling to try and appease as many people as possible?
Unfortunately, I think the Gazette had an opportunity to really investigate the scheme and look into the workings for us residents to make our own mind up, instead what we have ended up with is a Hillingdon Council statement and a opening few lines about ‘concerns’ which are just brushed aside by Cllr. Mills.
I have a feeling that once the cards have been issued and people start looking around for more information on what it is and how it works, the Gazette may have to do another piece, which will hopefully be more aggressive.
* Update: Just making it clearer that I am talking about the Council in general.
2 Responses to "Uxbridge Gazette 09/06"
June 10, 2009 at 8:02 pm
Hi,
Thank you for your information. I have to say I did not intend to call you a liar personally, you have already said in a previous post that you are not privy to the ins and out of the scheme. My point was more that its a similar response (e.g. the party line) and I assume this is what you have been told, so of course, you would repeat it. I hope this clears that up.
As for the actual 5 year old machines – I know these machines must be designed to last more than that and I am sure some of these machines are older than 5 years but certainly not all of them – there is a outstanding FOI request by someone else who noticed this, which will have this detailed but its overdue and we can only go by what we know to be true until then – I will certainly post an update when that has been dealt with.
I understand your point about the renewal policy, but this scheme was discussed in 2006, which means the newest machines could have been just 2 years old and I think that there was a lack of foresight at the very least.
Out of interest, do you have access to any reports showing non-resident usage of the dumps? I have seen this mentioned in quite a few places, but on searching Hillingdon’s website, not found anything.
Thanks.
June 10, 2009 at 4:59 pm
In response to your suggestion that ‘They are either lying now, or someone made a mistake buying them – which is it?’ I can explain that the lifecycle of some meachines in the estate was in excess of 5 years and that the solar powered machines and new maintenance contract terms will actually reduce running costs. The capital costs will be addressed by income under the scheme and/or offset from the costs saved from not having to landfill non-residents refuse. As the scheme is widened then further areas of use will allow the investment to be more quickly offset.
We have a renewal and write down policy in line with large corproates and a full cost and benefit assessment was doen before the new machines were purchased. I may be wrong in things I say and I may from time have been given wrong information or even failed to check details sufficinetly, but I do not lie.
Best regards
CllrSSD
http://bit.ly/p30l7