‘DISGUSTING’ probably sums it up for many who read the Journal item about costs being demanded by authorities if popular, traditional parades in Grantham are going to take place in future (Journal, February 17).
Previously, the Department for Transport simply provided road traffic advice on such events, but this has now been formally withdrawn. Anyone may apply for a Traffic Regulation Order, but local transport authorities have to “set appropriate local procedures and charges in a reasonable way that reflects the nature of proposed events”.
Grantham parade organisers are now being asked to spend £2,000 to ‘buy road closure and diversion signs’ which, clearly, already exist from use at previous events. All such previous signs were, of course, paid for by tax-payers, since roughly 78 per cent of our Council Tax goes to Lincolnshire County Council and 13 percent to the Police.
LCC traffic orders manager David Clark, suggests that this could be an “opportunity for local organisations to become more cost-effective in future”; this must have come straight from author Ambrose Bierce’s definition of ‘opportunity’: A favourable occasion for grasping a disappointment” - and how can effectively paying twice for the same thing ever be “cost-effective” for our local organisers?
BRIAN BRUCE
Bourne Road, Colsterworth