When is a policy not a policy?

The new Labour and Liberal Democrat beast that is running Southampton appear to asking themselves this very question. The recent approach to parking shows that confusion is at the heart of the beast. The ability to introduce a policy to charge people to park in residents parking zones is now in place, the leader of the council has said that they will have no plan to do it in the next 12 months. We have elections for the next 24 months, thus is reasonable to conclude form this that the administration plan to introduce such a policy in April 2009.

Some members say it is not a policy but I have found a few clues:

The policy is quite clear it says it on the front page of the document: ADOPTION OF A STRATEGIC-LEVEL PARKING POLICY FOR THE CITY

The second clue that it was a policy was on the recommendation of the report:

To adopt the policy at Appendix 2 as the basis for providing and managing parking in the City.

When they read appendix 2 they would have noted

2.12 Finally, there is a clear recognition that the provision and availability
of parking facilities has a value, and that users should expect to
contribute towards their provision, maintenance and management.
Charging policy is also seen as having the potential to influence travel
behaviour.

3.2 The provision and management of parking facilities creates a
significant level of cost to the Council and users should thus
pay for their use in recognition of the benefit they provide.
Charges should be set at levels that reflect the value of the
facility and that act as an incentive to consider the use of other
modes of travel – this provides the basis on which the Council
charges for the use of car parks and for parking permits, applies
differential charging scales to different facilities, and applies penalty
charges for contraventions of the operational regulations.


I do hope that this make it easy for them to know what they have passed.