Islington Council today (26 June) reveals the results of the country's first
referendum on climate change and car use - the people of Islington have said
'yes' to higher parking charges for gas guzzlers.
Islington Council was
the first local authority in the country to ballot every resident on the
electoral roll - more than 127,500 people - over whether owners of more
polluting cars should pay more for residents parking permits.
The
deadline for returns was yesterday (25 June). Today the Electoral Reform
Services, who administered the referendum on behalf of the council, revealed
56 per cent of residents who responded said yes.
Cllr James Kempton,
Leader of Islington Council, said: "This groundbreaking result has huge
implications not just for Islington but for the whole country. We're the first
council to ask people if they're up for meeting the challenge of climate
change - the answer is yes. It shows that people are ready to make big changes
to their lifestyle to tackle climate change.
"We've listened to our
residents' views and we'll be acting on them by introducing a green charging
system for residents' parking permits. By doing this we are challenging people
to think about the cars that they drive and their impact on the environment. I
hope that this will ultimately persuade people to switch to less polluting
vehicles.
"We balloted every resident because it's our priority to be a
council that listens to Islington. Our residents have told us that they want
us to involve them in local democracy and share dilemmas with them. More than
36,000 people responded - a response rate almost as high as for a local
election - which shows we were right to involve them in this important
decision."
Islington Council sent ballot papers to more than 127,500
residents (80,000 households) on 2 June 2007. A total of 36,792 residents sent
in their votes - a response rate of 28.8 per cent. This is only slightly below
the response rate for the 2006 local elections in Islington, which was 33 per
cent. Of the valid ballot papers, 20,226 were in favour and 15,883 were
against the green charging system for residents' permits (see notes for
results in full).
Cllr Kempton said: "We knew that not everyone would
be in favour of this particular green policy because it's about making the
polluter pay more and rewarding everyone else. Everyone is talking about
making changes to tackle climate change but not everyone agrees what changes
they should be. This shows, however, that most people are ready to make
changes around the car they drive to help the environment.
As a
community Islington has already taken bold steps to cut local carbon
emissions. Islington is the first council in the country to bring together
local public, private and voluntary sector organisations as a Climate Change
Partnership to sign up to a carbon reduction target, and earlier this year set
up a £3million Climate Change Fund.
Cllr Kempton said: "We're pleased
that the people of Islington have sent us a strong message of support for all
the things we are already doing and told us that they too are ready to meet
the challenge of climate change."
The council's Executive will
formally consider the results on 5 July 2007.
ENDS
Page Last Updated: 29 July 2008