News
Council officer admits failure on cycling targets
In an extraordinary paper to the Environmental Services & Public Health Scrutiny Sub-Committee on the 21st February 2002, council officer Chris Martin admitted that his department will fail to meet the council's target of doubling cycling by the year 2002. In fact cycling in Croydon appears to have declined by around 11% between 1998 and 2000.
At the meeting the Council Officer's paper on cycling failed to impress the members of the scrutiny committee and the paper was sent back with strong comments about its negative attitude and questions as to why Croydon has a falling level of cycling. The key moment came when the officer said during his presentation "I have to confess I am running out of ideas." This is in effect an open invitation for input from all of us, made in front of councillors and on the record and was repeated back at him by the chair during questions.
The councillors were all clearly distancing themselves from the content of the paper and questioning the clear lack of monitoring of the cycling strategy as well as its negative tone. The door has now been pushed wide for change in Croydon Council's implementation of its cycling strategy. and the competance of the officers involved has been called into question.
In the run up to the local elections we need to keep up the pressure on the political parties to tackle the failure of officers to implement the council cycling strategy.
