Hot on the heals of their meddling with the Prestwich area partnership and threats to Prestwich’s Longfield Suite community Centre, Bury Conservatives are now planning to introduce parking charges at the Fairfax Road car park.

The proposal has been introduced into their proposed council budget for 2010/11 and is budgeted to provide income of £35,000.

But the proposal is yet another example of Bury riding rough shod over Prestwich the town and its residents, no proper consultation, no consideration of the local situation and not even the courtesy of a an email to local councillors.

What’s more it cements the growing opinion that Bury’s Conservative administration doesn’t give a jot about the opinion of local townships like Prestwich and will do what it wants irrespective of local opinion.

But even worse, this proposal is either utterly negligent of plain spiteful. With the recovery of Prestwich Town centre in the balance, with some new businesses, some still struggling businesses and regeneration/development of the precinct not even started the conservatives have either not thought about the damage that parking charges could do to a fragile local economy (negligent) or it is a determined strategy to undermine recovery of the Prestwich economy because of its Lib Dem led local Area Partnership.

Time will tell whether it’s negligence or spite. What is certain is that this proposal will damage local businesses and the prospect for local recovery. I can assure readers that Lib Dem councillors will fight it all the way