Manchester (Evening News) so much to answer for... (with profuse apologies to The Smiths)

Oh dear... and for a short moment we may have thought that the Manchester Evening News had gone all cycling friendly.... but then they had to go an spoil it all.

Today's edition is running a story " Take a hike: Critics slam plan to tackle obesity crisis by raising car parking charges"  about the recently published report, from NICE (National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence) "Walking and cycling: local measures to promote walking and cycling as forms of travel or recreation" which was covered in this blog yesterday.

Most of the national TV media and newspapers covered the report fairly, stressing the message that people should be encouraged to walk or cycle on short journeys, rather than go by car.  The exception to this was the coverage in the Daily Mail. This prompted a rebuttal from the NHS "Behind the Headlines" service - 'NICE nanny state' parking cost claims are untrue.

The fact is that the NICE report does not recommend increasing the cost of parking. It simply states that "encouraging people to walk or cycle… could be achieved, for instance, by introducing restricted parking and higher parking charges" and also says that "there is a need to consider how this would impact on car owners living in areas where the environment is not conducive to walking or cycling, or where there is little real alternative to driving."

The Behind the Headlines article also makes clear that: "NICE never made any recommendations regarding parking charges – the idea was only mentioned as a single consideration. No specific recommendations were made on this issue in the guidance. Also, that NICE has no powers to put up parking charges.

But the M.E.N seem to have swallowed the Daily Mail spin, hook, line and sinker. The whole M.E.N. article is based around the "straw man" issues of raised parking charges and that "health chiefs want people to sell their cars"- and then seeks comments from people saying that the (non-existent) ideas are a bad thing. This includes Manchester Council's city centre spokesman, Councillor Pat Karney who is quoted as saying:   "I think that the public will just dismiss it as one of those crazy ideas. Everybody knows we need to do more exercise but I don’t think this is the way forward."


Did the MEN reporter, Emily Davis read the NICE report before writing the story? Did Pat Karney?  Are Manchester City Council's policy reponses on health, obesity and cycling now being dictated by the Daily Mail's frothing opinion pages?