Plaid Cymru is calling on the Labour Party to stop delivering a misleading leaflet which claims that park and ride charges are being introduced at local railway stations in Caerphilly County Borough.
Plaid councillors announced on February 16th that proposals to introduce charges from April would not be proceeded with because the council had received a better-than-expected financial settlement.
And the decision to confirm the deferment for at least a year was agreed at last Thursday’s budget meeting.
However, the local Labour Party leaflet, Caerphilly Local Voice, wrongly claims a charge is being introduced and is continuing to be distributed despite the council decision.
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.”
