Sustainable Travel Towns – election material correction

We have been made aware of a statement in elections material prepared for the elections in May. This material states:

“Labour plan to remove free parking in High Street

With no public consultation, your Labour Council has volunteered Stevenage to be one of three Sustainable Travel Towns in Hertfordshire. This means that all free parking has to be removed from the High Street in the next two or three years.”

We would like to offer a clarification. There are no plans in place to remove all free car parking in the High Street.

We submitted an application to Hertfordshire County Council to become a Sustainable Travel Town. Through their Sustainable Travel Town programme, the County Council has set out a range of criteria to help promote sustainable travel, including in relation to parking.

As part of the Sustainable Travel Towns programme, we were asked to provide a roadmap to do so, potentially over a number of years. We agreed to conducting a review of this. However, no decisions have been taken to remove free parking.

To date the funding available to the Sustainable Travel Towns programme and the associated projects have not been confirmed. Accordingly no decisions have been made on this matter.