This town is looking like a ghost town

So Little Dean sees himself as the saviour of our Town Centres and the Tory to rid the borough of the spectre of the lesser known Cllr Brian Coleman.

So as I have said before, we now have concessions in North Finchley Town Centre which has produced much relief to hard pressed traders. Sadly though the same cannot be said of other town centres.

Little Dean and his colleagues dismissed Cllr Alan Schniederman’s request for a ‘Free after 3’ proposals for the run to Christmas until 7^th January 2012. He did not even come up with any concrete plans to alleviate the problems facing traders across the borough.

That was until last night.  While the rest of the Tories on the Business Management Scrutiny Committee were congratulating the diminutive councillor on his vision and action some of us sat there rather bemused.

Local ward councillors have not been consulted on planned changes to parking in their town centres and more importantly neither have local residents. Traders who are demanding action now will have to wait until the New Year to see proposed plans (an informed member of the public gallery did pipe up and ask what New Year) and when pushed on what concessions may be introduced this Christmas Little Dean acted somewhat coyly saying an announcement would be made soon. Clearly the members of the committee cajoled him into letting the cat out of the bag. It is therefore down to me to announce that Barnet’s town centres will have a two day concession the weekend before Christmas, restricted to 2 hours. Yes Saturday 22^nd December and Sunday 23^rd December. Hard pressed husbands will be pleased, Supermarket car parks will still be full and Brent Cross Traders will not be shaking in their boots.

As posters go up in High Barnet requesting, ‘Free after 3’ it looks as though Scrooge still rides high in Barnet. The ghost of Christmas yet to come is not the saviour after all.