Joyce Watson hits back at Pembrokeshire County Council over £67,000 parking report (From Western Telegraph)

Joyce Watson hits back at Pembrokeshire County Council over £67,000 parking report

1:50pm Saturday 28th November 2009 in

• Skip social links
• Print
• Email
• Comments(1)

The row over a controversial £67,000 parking report shows no sign of slowing down.

AM Joyce Watson, who slammed the report’s cost, has hit back at Pembrokeshire County Council leader John Davies’ claim that she could have called in the decision to commission consultants.

Last week Cllr Davies said Mrs Watson had been council Labour group leader when consultants were called in.

But Mrs Watson stepped down from the role in May 2006, a year before the report was commissioned.

“Yet again, John Davies is happy to be leader in name only,” said Mrs Watson.

“He is less happy to lead when he is challenged over decisions that he presides over. Then he prefers to deflect blame to overview and scrutiny committees, former councillors or anyone else who fits the bill.

“He must accept that leading requires leadership — this is an inescapable fact of political life.”

Mrs Watson added: “Come on, John, be brave. Admit that it was you who sanctioned this report, who agreed the costs, who decided to use consultants, and who accepts the responsibility.”

But Cllr Davies said whether Mrs Watson was leader of the Labour group at the time was ‘irrelevant’ as she had remained a county councillor.

“I would also point out that if cabinet’s decision to impose car parking charges hadn’t been called in by opposition members, then the whole process would have progressed naturally.

“The policy would have been implemented and the council would not have needed to spend £67,000 on a consultant’s report. But as I said previously, had the council done the report ‘in-house’, Joyce Watson would have been the first to challenge its objectivity.”

Cllr Davies then went on to attack the use of consultants by the Labour-led Welsh Assembly.

“Of course, she thinks nothing of supporting an administration which spends £15million on a report into a M4 relief road which will not now be built —money which could have been spent improving the A40 into Pembrokeshire.

“With Joyce Watson, the county council is always in the wrong. I have never heard her say one word in praise of the county council or its employees, so her latest utterances are entirely consistent with her past record.”