Stoke Gifford Parish Council voted last night in favour of charging parkrun for use of the local park for members of the public to use for free. The PM has applauded the decision saying that it signifies just the start of some great savings that can be made by government. In a statement last night he said:
Councils across the country have huge bills for supplying services available for free universally to taxpayers. It is only fair and right that people shouldn’t have to pay for the bits they don’t use. Should blind people have to pay for cleaning graffiti? Should illiterate people have to pay for libraries? There are lots of very sick people in hospitals and that costs lots of money, why should healthy people foot the bill?
Parkrunner Julie also thought it was a great idea:
I got into parkrun because I was overweight and it was free so I had no excuse not to get fit. Now the council have changed this I can stay in bed on Saturdays eating chocolate guilt-free 🙂
The council said this is just the start and aims to have the lowest council tax charges in the UK. A Council spokesman announced:
Emptying dog litter bins is a messy and expensive job. People that don’t have dogs shouldn’t have to pay the “brown tax”. We will be replacing all dog litter bins with high tech bins that require dog-walkers to pay 50p in order to make a “deposit”.