‘Zombie car parks’ were dealt a blow yesterday as Manchester City Council rejected a bid for a car park on Ancoats.
The Pirate Party have claimed the decision is a ‘major’ victory as the Simple Intelligent Parking application for north Manchester was rejected on Thursday.
The party have been highlighting the issue of the shabby and unsightly car parks across the city as a cause of concern for some time.
Loz Kaye, leader of the Pirate Party, told MM that he was delighted that the council had turned down the plans.
“This is a major victory for the Pirate Party campaign to make sure the city is environmentally friendly,” he said.
“We have been highlighting the blight of the zombie car parks for months now and of course this is not necessarily the end of the road. These plans can still come back.
“The council is beginning to see that retrospective planning applications do not give people a say over what is happening in their area.”
Mr Kaye also said that he wanted Manchester City Council, currently controlled by Labour, to follow through on their promise to make Manchester a green city.
“The Labour party all along have claimed that they want to see a greener city. What the policy up to now, in practice, has been is to turn our city into grey spaces so it is time for them to actually engage properly and put their money where their mouth is,” he continued.
“Putting in unplanned car parking is completely against the stated aims of actually trying to make Manchester more friendly for cycling, pedestrians and those that use public transport.”
The party would like to see the space in Ancoats turned in to a small park and feels that to make the most of their local areas the public needs to be more involved in the decision making process.
“What seems to be happening is that people do not seem to genuinely know about the spaces that are available,” he explained.
“It is about actually planning things positively with residents rather than having things imposed and that is what we are about and that is what will benefit the city.”
Picture courtesy of Ajehals, with thanks.
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