Central 6 campaigners stage another peaceful protest seeking answers

VIDEO: CAMPAIGNERS protesting against Warrington Borough Council’s controversial Central 6 Low Traffic schemes in Orford and Westy, staged a peaceful protest outside the town’s youth zone, where members of the council’s cabinet were meeting on Monday night.

Campaign numbers were considerably less than at the town hall and Parr hall, but organisers put this down to the hot weather, the venue and work commitments.

While campaigners saythere has been some good progress made in pausing the Orford scheme, they are still seeking more information about how the council plan to engage with the Westy/ Latchford scheme and also how they are monitoring progress of the scheme in general.

Campaign spokesperson Rachael Harper said: “We note that there is an official email address for people to send their concerns to about the scheme and that the council has put forward some engagement events. While this is a great start, we have yet to see any action from the council in terms of acting on concerns from the Westy side, yet this continues to cause significant disruption to people’s daily lives.
“Given the way the council forced this through after consulting less than 100 people in the Westy/ Latchford area, combined with the fact that the council has maintained an adequate consultation took place, despite a public report in which they admitted there were issues, then I’m afraid the council will have to take further action to gain back the trust of their people.
“While their efforts do not go unnoticed, they have not yet done anything to show us that they are prepared to act on the concerns for the whole of the scheme in all areas of Warrington. What do they have to say to the businesses who are losing money because of this? To the people who are struggling to access their houses because Grange Avenue has now become a car park? What do they have to say to the people who feel like the council has let them down??
“I hope we get some answers to those questions tonight, because a lot of us are quite fed up with copy and paste job emails from local councillors, if some of us are lucky to get even that. I would have a lot more respect for my council if they held up their hands and admitted this did not go as they expected, then we would be able to move forward knowing they can acknowledge and act on things they have done well. Otherwise we’re going to be stuck in the same cycle of ignorance and confusion.”

The next event will be a protest march on the 23rd July at 2pm. when protesters will be walking from Orford Park (meeting at the cafe) to Victoria park via Grange Avenue.
Rachael added: “Given it’s the weekend and how many people are frustrated about this issue, we are are expecting a large turnout to let the council know we will not rest until democracy is upheld.”