You can't beat a good double announcement by the Government, and let's be honest, they do it a lot. This time round it comes from the Douglas Alexander at Transport, where he has announced "a further £7.5 million" for nine regions to "to tackle local congestion and inform the debate on a national road pricing scheme".The first most obvious bit of maths is that £7.5m dvided by nine actually only works out to just over £800,000 each. That probably won't pay for much more than the hot air consultancy fees. Also, and just to put it into perspective, the congestion charging scheme in London had an initial cost of £200 million.
However, the real killer comes in the second paragraph of the press release. It says the "money comes from the second round of an £18 million fund, set up in July 2005". So errr. hang on second... it's not a further £7.5 million at all, it's the same money from a lump sum already agreed and announced.
4 comments:
What do you expect? Brown in particular keeps mention x billion for such and such, only to be found out as having already announced - and in some cases reannounced -it. And as you say, £800,000 is a days work to a few consultants
I just take anything the government says with a pinch of salt and a shot of Tequila.
If you don't believe the hype, then you're not going to be so disappointed!
Someone needs to tell Norwich then because accoring to the Eastern Daily Press, Norwich got only £500,000. I have mentioned this on my blog today, in relation to congestion charging.
I'd be gutted if I only manage to stick em for £800k a day; actually fired.
However, no harm hear, no one listens to a word these muppets say anymore.
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