SO the City of York Council is set to undertake a further consultation of residents, this time regarding its form of government. If past efforts are anything to go by, the questions will be poorly-phrased, with single questions covering multiple issues.
All the recent consultations on transport reveal underlying agendas which the council is trying to push. The council just repeats its mantras of park and ride, road humps and cycle tracks as solutions to all transport problems.
Each list of proposals is presented as a package, one being completely inadequate, the rest involving increasing numbers of the council's own pet ideas with additional "good" ideas thrown in as sweeteners.
The recent questionnaire on the Millennium Cycle Route is a case in point. One question asked for residents' opinion on two different traffic signal proposals - each traffic signal is an individual case and should be treated so. Another question asked for residents' opinion on cycle lanes/paths/routes - cycle lanes, paths and routes are all quite different and some are appropriate in some cases but not in others.
Will things change? I very much doubt it. After all, it is in the council's interest to be able to pretend that it is consulting residents, and it is in its interest to continue on its own blinkered path.
Dr Duncan Campbell,
Albemarle Road, York.
Updated: 10:51 Tuesday, April 17, 2001
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