Comments on: Mayor launches c-charge consultation

By: Mike Kielty

Mike Kielty — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 14:16:24 +0000

I am a senior citizen.I live only 100 yards inside the western extention perimeter fence,from my window I can see my friends and relatives whizzing past on the perimeter road,I watch with tears in my eyes and sorrow in my heart knowing that they will not come in to see me,due to the charge of £8 levied.I can remember the past,the great big world outside the zone ,the fun and oppertunites to be had in the big outside,now denied to me ie cost.Boris get rid of it asap you promised.you show them your the man.dont bottle it.

By: TawkinSenz

TawkinSenz — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I completely agree with Damian, this is a pointless excercise as the mayor (should) have already decided what he is doing as it was in his election manifesto.
Having just completed the survey I was intrigued to see a question relating to whether TFL should implement an accounting based system for payment. Seems to be a reasonable idea, however having read back through Boris’s manifesto for the election he has stated that he WILL do this, not that he will “consult the public to see if it’s a good idea first”.
Also, these consultations are not accurate statistical measurements. They give an impression of being like a referendum, but with a couple of made up e-mail addresses it’s quite easy to make several entries in favour or against. Also, there is a comments section – who the hell is going to sit there and read all those comments? Have city hall paid for thousands of people to read and analyse them? I suspect not.
Finally, I thought we elect our Mayor to govern, not to keep asking us what we think he should do. If we’re going to do that we would have been better axing the mayor and all his deputies and replacing them with a ‘referendum machine’ that allows the public to vote regularly and make the decisions for London.

By: Damian Hockney

Damian Hockney — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

At the heart of this surely is the flawed concept of consultation – in the modern era, it means whatever you want it to mean. Amid a ragbag of responses, you will have different groups with agendas and views and no-one ever really specifies whose view counts and what the weight is. Is there any form of weighting? Let’s say that 10,000 individuals, four local authorities and 30 pressure groups/business groups respond, is there some sort of hierarchy? Do 600 OAP responses saying No = 1 local authority saying yes? Is there a Mayoral template (ie if 51% of people write in saying they want to scrap the extension zone, does it go? Or 66%? 80%? 91%). If there are 10,000 responses, how does that play in an electorate of 5 million (or a few hundred thousand in the actual zone)? No-one ever specifies. Which allows the politicians to do what they have already decided. In those circumstances, the former Mayor was able to say that following consultation he was introducing the zone…it is not a referendum, neither is it a poll. It’s, er, people sounding off (and the authorities deciding to do what they have already decided to do, dressed up with the words from those who have submitted consultations – specially those who have been encouraged to submit and who are writing the things which the decision makers wants to hear). Has the outcome already been decided? I would not be surprised…