I was back at Norfolk County Hall again on Tuesday for a Full Council meeting where I was pleased to support a Labour motion which received cross-party support calling for more to be done to stop sewage being pumped into our seas and waterways. I'll post the newspaper write-up of the motion's success in the comments.
Disappointingly one of their proposals was to allocate money in support of 20 minute-neighbourhoods.
I have a longstanding objection to the Norwich Western Link road. This is well documented and the reasons for logged. But, I will not vote for or support any move towards the establishment of 20 minute neighbourhoods.
Myself and a fellow Cllr therefore tabled an amendment to the Green motion that removed the recommendation to reinvest money into 20 minute neighbourhoods. If the amendment were approved, the original motion would have simply called for the Western Link road to be scrapped. Our amendment was defeated however, but so was the whole Green motion, thankfully.
This is all a bit complicated as it involves motions and amendments and Council procedure rules but the long and short of it is attempts by the Greens to allocate money towards 20 minute neighbourhoods have been rejected.
For now the Western Link road limps on. In my view any funds "saved" from scrapping the Western Link should be used to fund our core services that are in a desperate state. We have an adult social care system in crisis, children's services lacking funding to properly support all of Norfolk's children and a public transport system that's woefully inadequate - to name just a few of our challenges. As was highlighted today, rather than building new roads the County Council should be taking better care of our existing road network!
I am pleased that the Green motion was rejected by the Council today, but maintain my view that the Western Link road is unjustifiable and unaffordable.
