Thursday 25th May, 2023
You’ve got to admire the balls of the Essex County Council comms team. Who else could shit post a press release about cancelling active travel, and make it sound like a bright green future for Sunny Colch?
The ‘pausing’ of proposals for Crouch Street West is heralded with a headline of:
Colchester to benefit from safer, greener, healthier travel infrastructure
The press release that The Chronic has seen claims:
“Projects that can be implemented to improve the way Colchester residents move through the city, and therefore encourage a more active and healthy lifestyle and potentially help them save money at the same time, will be prioritised by Essex County Council over larger schemes that will take longer to develop.
This includes pausing our proposals on Crouch Street West and Balkerne Hill to consider alternative interventions that will help improve walking, cycling and the availability of public space in the area.”
aka shit caning.
This is important because the DFT could revoke the funding award, and penalise ECC in future allocations.
This suggests the reason for delaying the announcement for this change was to ensure they got their latest allocation which was announced on Monday.
Nice work, team.
It’s also worth pointing out that the press release which dropped late on Monday made for very convenient political timing. Colchester City Council was without a Cabinet or Leader at the time. No response could be put forward.
Colchester City Council and Essex County Council – a true working partnership with both sides not at all suspicious of each other.
Nope.
Not here.
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