Jun 03 - GSD: Minister For Traffic ‘Disconnected From Traffic Reality’
The GSD has said that the Minister for Traffic and Transport’s latest reply to claims that he is refusing to answer to the people when asked to do so ‘beggars belief.’
The GSD says: “The Minister is accepting that he finds it amusing that his counterpart in Opposition asks him questions on the same issue over and over for the simple reason that he refuses to answer the questions! The Minister pretends that this supposedly revolutionary plan will be a plan for the next 20 years: well it’s taken 4 years so far and we still don’t have a final version - it may be another few before anything of substance actually happens.”
The GSD says that it has asked in Parliament, as it is entitled to do, for a list of the initiatives that the Government has received as suggestions from the community as part of the consultation process. The party says that it has also asked for confirmation of which initiatives the Minister is taking on board and which ones he has rejected.
“We’ve been approached with a number of concerns about the plan, e.g., concerns from senior citizens about the effect of removing Market Place as a bus terminus and the prospect of having to walk to the Watergardens area laden with shopping,” explained the GSD’s Shadow Minister for Traffic, Selwyn Figueras.
He continued, saying: “We also know that the Gibraltar Cycling Club has made representations about the concept of a bicycle lane at the frontier and all we want is to understand what has, in fact, been raised with the Minister by the community and how he has dealt with these representations. So far, all the cycling club has, as an example, received from the Minister is, firstly, a standard copy/pasted letter giving thanks for the participation and, following a second letter asking for a substantive reply, another letter thanking the club for its time and advising that a substantive response would follow shortly! It’s clearly not just the Shadow Minister he doesn’t want to share information with…”
Mr Figueras went on to say that “the removal of 30 parking spaces and the installation of a makeshift roundabout are hardly worth even writing about but that’s practically the sum total of all the work the Minister has done on Traffic in almost four years. The Minister in his manifesto for 2011 said that a new plan would be prepared as a ‘matter of priority.’ The GSLP also promised a new road to the south district through New Harbours and park and ride schemes to tackle the tourist traffic and keep it away from town but like their failure to provide parking spaces beneath Commonwealth Park, as they promised, these are another two manifesto commitments they look likely to fail to deliver.
“The Minister has roundly failed to deliver on traffic policy and has hidden behind consultation after consultation, with no direction from him whatsoever. His lack of direction is hardly surprising; the Minister acts like there’s no problem at all - he certainly doesn’t seem to have any difficulty finding parking. All that notwithstanding, this is not a matter for his amusement - this is his responsibility as a Minister and he’s not just refusing to share the information with the Opposition, he’s refusing to share the information with the people.”
{fcomment}
