A parking review consultation run quietly at the start of the year seems to have been so little publicised that it attracted just 42 responses (augmented with another 58 garnered by phone).
The change it included that residents may feel most keenly is the abolition of daily visitor permits.
Currently Haringey's website gives the following prices for visitor permits:
Standard daily visitor permits are £5 and hourly are £1.20.
The "Parking Strategy and Policy/Charges Review, Appendix D: Updated parking permit policy / charges" shares the expectation that residents will henceforth be expected to make up a day's parking permit with hourly permits. For the Ladder where the CPZ runs from 08:00 to 18:30, this will require eleven hourly permits to make up a full day. If the hourly charge remains at £1.20, this will mean a total daily cost of £13.20, an increase of a mere 164%. The cutting below is extracted from that Appendix.
It's not clear to me why hourly permits should be less open to abuse than daily ones, but I'm all ears. If the primary motivation for this change was indeed to counter permit abuse, one would have thought it a fairly easy matter to protect residents from the affects of standing up to the abuse by simply putting a cap on daily charges like London Transport do. As far as I can make out, this hasn't happened.
At section 4.1 of the background papers (attached below), the Council has gone to the trouble of benchmarking the cost of daily business visitor permits. That's helpful. They looked at Camden, Islington, Ealing, Greenwich and Waltham Forest.
For some reason, no benchmarking was done on the cost of daily resident visitor parking costs. I've done my best to fill that gap. I've used the same boroughs and added Hackney since that was a missing neighbouring borough.
The current cost for a visitor to park in CPZ of those six boroughs for a day are as follows.
Camden: £8.79
Islington: £7.20 - £8.00 (on my calculationat £0.90 and £1.00 per hour)) discounted to £2.80 for 60+
Greenwich: Tradesmen £18.50 per week, and £9 per 10 vouchers (no information on time period validity)
Waltham Forest: £8.00 (at £1.00 per hour)
Hackney: £5.30.......................
...................vs Haringey: £13.20
....unless of course I'm misunderstanding Haringey's policy - only too happy to be set straight.
As part of the review, an Equality Impact Assessment (EIA) was run. As a part of that assessment, equality as it relates to socio-economic status was considered. In the case of the daily parking permits, the situation roughly divides the east of the borough, with all its indicators of deprivation, from the much wealthier west. In the west, two-hour CPZ predominate: in the east >8 hour zones are the rule. The shift from daily to hourly permits will barely affect the west of the borough, whereas it will have a significant impact on the east. The only outcomes noted under the socio-economic section of the EIA are "Positive", "Positive" and ... er ... "Positive". The unequal nature of the daily parking charge was not even considered. So the EIA as it relates to socio-economic status is badly flawed.
The change was part of a wider Parking strategy review that was passed by the Council last week. The recommendations of the review were adopted without dissent (see minute 48:30 of meeting on YouTube).
This change is unlikely to affect me personally but I fear that it may have an impact on some who are not is a strong position to absorb the increased charges.
Tags for Forum Posts: daily parking permits, parking, visitor parking, visitor parking permits
Have just been to Wood Green Library to purchase some paper hourly and daily permits (readily available with no faff btw but you need to pay at the library and they will be posted to your home address about a week later) and the customer service officer knew nothing about the proposed abolition of daily permits!
That's interesting to know as they were on my list to talk to! How shocking they didn't know.
surely this cannot be legal? if i am to have my two children who grew up here, but can no longer afford to live here, over for the weekend, because i live near the Spurs Stadium which has frequent non football events on, i would have to pay £50 for their two cars? This would be quite different if i lived in other areas where the parking restrictions are only 2 hours, Monday to Friday? This is blatant discrimination. Surely Haringey cannot do this legally?
Hence my claim of Anti-Social Behaviour by the Council contrasted with the need to enable Prosocial Behaviour such as that of your children, friends and relatives.
The formal consultation has not yet been carried out. Therefore it is important that people on HoL stay in touch and make sure that our voices and different views contribute to that legal consultation when it happens.
Alan - has there ever been an occasion when a statutory consultation led to changes of policy - ever?
Yea, if statutory consultees like the emergency services object it tends not to happen or is amended
Hi All,
Please see below the email & request for information I have submitted to my local councillors Zena Brabazon, Gina Adamou, Ana Abela, Scott Emery (councillor for Highgate who I know shares our concerns) and MP Catherine West.
Please please can folks who disagree with this decision draft their own, or copy paste one of the email examples shared in this thread emails & to express your concerns. You can find you local councillors here:
https://www.minutes.haringey.gov.uk/mgMemberIndex.aspx?FN=WARD&...
Email:
Title: [urgent] Concerns & Request for information regarding Parking Policy changes
Dear XXX
I have become aware that on the 16th of July a Cabinet meeting was held at which the Cabinet agreed to, amongst other things, changes to parking charges in Harringay which include discontinuation of daily permits for residents subject to a Statutory Consultation.
Please can you:
Many Thanks,
Caitlin
Questions
Topic 1: Purpose of decision to remove daily permits
According to the Public reports pack 16072024 1830 Cabinet pages 247 - 334, the decision to remove the option for daily parking permits was taken due to the ‘potential for the use of daily visitor permits for uses other than those intended’. (8.10)
Appendix D states that ‘Circumstantial evidence suggests daily visitor permits are open to being used for purposes other than intended’
Note: As per the public report section 11.10, “The Council must not set charges for vehicles left in parking places for the purpose of raising revenue.”
If there is no evidence that this change to charges will reduce the [apparent] misuse of parking permits, the only outcome of this change is revenue generation & cost recovery of the £880,000 overspend in Parking (cabinet meeting notes from July 16th) rather than improving local services.
Topic 2: Assessment of impact on residents
Per the agreed change, for a Harringay Ladder resident, full day parking will require 11 x £1.20 permits which costs £13.20 vs the current £5, an increase of 164%
Through some research, local residents have identified the following comparisons
Please provide information on what discussions have taken place regarding this planned discrepancy in cost, and reasons why it was considered appropriate to increase financial burden on Harringay residents to such an extent.
Thanks for your fantastic work.
Thank you Caitlin i will definitely write to my local councillors and David Lammy! thanks for sharing your draft.
Hi All, here's a draft leeter to our local councillor I've shared on the Effingham Rd WhatsApp gp.
Dear Gina
I am writing to express my shock and concern at the decision taken at Cabinet on 16/07/24 to abolish the Visitor Day Pass for parking in the CPZ in Harringay and across the borough. This means an effective price increase for residents from £5 per day to £13.20, an increase of 164%!
Having watched the video of the meeting through a link on ‘Harringay On Line’ , it is clear that the brief discussion was ill-informed, was based on an absurdly small ‘consultation’ (48 residents, boosted to 100 by a phone survey) and did not consider the impact of this massive increase on local residents. If I recall correctly one Cabinet member questioned it, calling it ‘heavy handed’ - an understatement.
My immediate concern is to find out what can be done to reconsider this decision in a way that takes account of the views of your constituents, who I am sure were totally unaware of this proposal. I know there is a great deal of anger and disbelief at this decision, and the way it was taken, on various local WhatsApp groups and through discussion on on-line forums.
Like many others I have significant objections to the decision and feel sure that if the proposal had gone to a full council meeting, you and other councillors would have raised these objections on our behalf.
Some immediate concerns are:
This will disproportionally affect those on low income who rely on, for example, visiting family members to help with childcare. Also, vulnerable, ill or lonely residents who rely on friends and family visiting - sometimes their only contact - will find this increase prohibitive.
Local tradespeople will be affected as it will increase considerably the cost of doing work on properties on the Ladder. If you are having substantial renovations or other building works over months this could literally add hundreds of pounds to the cost.
I’m sure the majority of us have friends and family to stay on occasion - if they stay for a week that’s a cost of £79! Bear in mind residents in the more affluent west of the borough have minimal parking restrictions and consequently will be largely unaffected.
Justification
The anecdotal justification for this draconian measure was twofold. It was claimed people were selling on day passes to commuters outside the borough on a daily basis and some businesses were impacted by cars parked outside their retail properties all day. These concerns can readily be addressed by simple changes to the digital pass system - an obvious solution and one that could have been considered had there been proper consultation. None of our neighbouring boroughs have punished local residents in this way, why us?
In conclusion, I would appreciate it if you could determine, as a matter of urgency, how this decision can be paused and revisited to take account of your constituents circumstances. Politicians often have a reputation for ‘doubling down’ when errors have been made, I hope you and other councillors can convince the Cabinet that this is a heavy handed and poorly thought through decision that should be speedily reversed and other options explored.
Yours Sincerely
HI All,
Small update - my parther just recieved this email response from Catherine West. I have also contacted her, but not response yet.
Can I please ask that all folks contacting their councillors also contact their MPs? It will be harder to ignore our concerns if there are many voices coming through.
There is power in numbers!
Dear Sam,
Thank you for your email.
I am sorry to hear you are concerned about a decision Haringey Council is making around parking permits. It is important to say that as a Member of Parliament I have no remit over Haringey Council so I am pleased to hear you have already been in touch with your local councillors. They are excellent and are elected to represent constituents on local matters. They also hold advice surgeries if you would prefer to speak to them in person.
In addition, parking issues come under the remit of Cllr Seema Chandwani, who is the Cabinet Member for Resident Services & Tackling Inequality and very responsive to resident concerns. If you haven’t already, you can find out how to contact her here: https://www.minutes.haringey.gov.uk/mgUserInfo.aspx?UID=11297 to raise any questions or concerns you may have about their proposal.
Kind regards,
Catherine
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