It's a bit rich for councillor Ann Norman to criticise the consultant's fee for park and ride when it was the Conservatives who doubled that expenditure by insisting the less viable site of Braypool was also taken forward along with Patcham Court Farm to the final, detailed stage of the site search - and then pulled the plug on the whole project.

Spending on consultants has always been discussed cross-party, with full details shared. If the Conservatives do not want to use consultants then they will need to contract additional council staff to provide the expertise not currently available in-house for special projects.

All this leads me to believe the Conservatives have no intention of taking the city forward with exciting projects such as the New Road enhancement, where the advice from world renowned landscape architects was central to achieving such a good scheme.