The Caerphilly Plaid Cymru group have demanded their Labour rivals withdraw a party leaflet which they describe as “misleading”.
The leaflet, called Caerphilly Local Voice, claims park and ride charges are being introduced at railway stations in Caerphilly County Borough – something Plaid has put on hold.
Councillor Lindsay Whittle, Plaid leader of the council and an Assembly election candidate in South Wales East, said: “When we made the original decision to impose charges we were facing the daunting task of potentially having to make £36m of savings and so had to make some very difficult choices.
“Fortunately, the financial settlement was better than expected and that enabled us to look again at the proposed park and ride charges. As with the freezing of council tax – the only Welsh authority to do so – we do not want to place additional pressures on our residents in these difficult times.
“Labour locally knows full well that the charge is not being introduced so to continue delivering them would be misleading the public. I trust the Assembly Member Jeff Cuthbert will call a halt to this immediately because I’m sure he would not want to mislead people.”
Mr Cuthbert though has defended the publication of the leaflet.
He said: “I stand by the comments made in the Caerphilly Local Voice leaflet that was recently distributed.
“In its recent u-turn, Caerphilly County Borough Council deferred the introduction of rail park-and-ride charges for one year, so that nationalist candidates Lindsay Whittle and Ron Davies would not be associated with an unpopular decision before the Assembly elections. Indeed, we’ll wait and see whether or not they cynically ‘defer’ the charges again before next year’s council elections.
“Residents should be aware that the proposed charges have not been scrapped completely – they could still be introduced in the future. Indeed, I have received confirmation that the council has already spent around £60,000 of taxpayers’ money on preparing to introduce the charges.
“Anyway, when the Caerphilly Local Voice leaflet was printed and initially distributed, the council had yet to make its embarrassing U-turn.”
Cllr Hefin David, Labour’s ward member for St Cattwg, added: “I am glad that Labour’s campaign, which included the leaflet, forced the Plaid cabinet into the u-turn. I don’t think they would have made the change if the Labour team hadn’t put them under pressure by bringing the issue to public attention.”
Dear sir.
I would like to comment on the Plaid group on Caerphilly council.stateing that a leaflet by the local labour party is misleading the people by stateing that they have aggred to incress the charges at all park and ride in the Caerphilly area.I have just read the labour leaflet.I think it is an understament to say it is misleading.(I think they are lying to the people of Caerphilly,)It would seem that the more times you say some thing which is not true the people may belive this,dont belive this.The people can contact the council on this item to see who is telling the truth.Stop this Lying.
David Smith.
The usual type of misleading leaflet from Labour prior to an election, they must think the Caerphilly residents have no intelligence. They have used these tactics for years,Joe Public can interpret these desperation leaflets, they interpret as "Labour & Cuthbert are desperate and running as scared as hell.
We can expect this kind of 'bad cop, good cop'excuse for Policies from Plaid because, apart for 'Independence', they don't have any. Why would the Plaid Council have announced this universally unpopular charge on Parking if they intended to defer it until after crucial elections. Grow up Plaid – we're not fooled by 'smoke and mirrors'.The facts speak for themselves.