Julian Knight, the MP for Solihull and our town’s voice in Parliament, has taken a member of the Birmingham Council cabinet to task over their scheme to have Solihull residents subsidise parks in the city.
Councillor Lisa Trickett, the City Council’s cabinet member for Clean Streets, Recycling, and Environment, admitted her scheme whilst being cross-examined before Parliament’s Communities and Local Government committee on Monday.
Her plan, as reported in the local press, is for motorists from across the West Midlands entering Birmingham, even for work, to be taxed in order to pay for inner-city green spaces.
Pressed by Julian on whether this would mean taxpayers from other parts of the West Midlands paying for Birmingham’s parks, Cllr Trickett argued that: “The issue would be that it is quite often the people living in the shires who drive their cars into my city for employment that creates some of the air pollution.”
In response to the proposal, Julian Knight said:
“I have fought against attempts to create ‘Greater Birmingham’ ever since I was elected. Devolution is supposed to be about bringing power to our region from Westminster, not sapping power from our local communities into the big city.
“Councillor Trickett should consider that not only do motorists already pay huge sums in taxes, but when Solihull residents drive into Birmingham for work or leisure they are providing a substantial boost to the economy of ‘her’ city!
“I won’t allow badly-run Birmingham Council to use the Combined Authority as a backdoor means of squeezing money out of neighbouring communities just because it has run out of its own.”