Milton view Problems with parking
Dear Editor, The Scottish Government wants to outlaw the practice of parking on pavements and double parking and has included them in its Transport (Scotland) Bill.
Readers of the Advertiser will know that it recently published an article “Council wants parking power” in which South Lanarkshire wanted the powers of enforcement of pavement parking transferred to it.
In its submission to the Scottish Government’s Improving Parking in Scotland consultation it stated that “An amendment to and clarification of current legislation, with respect to who can enforce it, is all that is required.” Best of luck with that. This is a typical simplistic approach to a complex problem and mirrors the same approach to their SNP colleagues in Edinburgh.
What happened to the ill-fated attempt to amalgamate Police Scotland with The British Transport Police?
Who is going to enforce these regulations when parking attendants log off about 5.30pm?
Parking regulations in Hamilton effectively seem to cease about this time.
On its website, South Lanarkshire Council states “They [parking attendants] do not have powers to take action against obstructive or inconsiderate parking where there are no yellow lines.
“This is the responsibility of the police.”
Anyone dealing with the police on the above will know that these matters are far from straight forward but at least the police can be contacted 24/7.
This is just another case of South Lanarkshire wishing to get new powers when it is demonstrably failing to exercise its existing powers.
John L Rimmer (Sen), Park Road Hamilton Dear Editor, I note yet another Nationalist has contributed the most recent diatribe to your paper. I speak of Clare Haughey’s column, on the most recent work of fiction from the SNP.
Her column mirrors the report itself, full of rhetoric but short on hard evidence. This is yet more fantasy politics and economics from the most incompetent government ever elected in Scotland.
The report talks about reducing the deficit to three per cent in 10 years from 2021/22. At the moment this stands at about 8.3 per cent, so this would involve a reduction of over five per cent.
Most sensible people with a basic knowledge of economics, realise that an SNP government is incapable of dealing properly with such matters.
It depends on a rate of growth that Scotland is not predicted to match over this period. A basic knowledge of simple arithmetic suggests that using a GDP of about £190 billion at 2032, the end of the ten-year period, would produce a deficit based on these figures of £5.7billion.
If one adds the £5 billion Scotland intends to pay to the UK annually, this is a net figure of £10.7 billion. These figures represent an annual rate of growth of about 1.5 per cent, which most economists agree Scotland cannot produce. Such a deficit would involve similar austerity to what we have at the moment. An independent Scotland, without the benefit of the Barnett formula to cover this deficit, would either need to reduce services further or increase taxation to very high levels.
I provide these figures simply as a numerical example of how flawed and ridiculous this Growth Commission document is. The report itself does not provide hard facts simply illustrative examples, to use the report’s own language.
This report should not be looked upon as a first draft of the future for Scotland, as Clare Haughey suggests, but the final nail in the coffin for this dreadful, inept and economically bankrupt government, and further proof, if such proof was needed, that the SNP has shot its bolt and is on the way out.
John Rankin Via email