Harringay online

Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!

Ending of Haringey Daily Visitor Permits to increase daily visitor parking charge by 164%

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

Views: 16918

Attachments:

Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Chadwani presently declines to be lobbied: 

"Hi Nigel

Parking Consultations have to be Statutory Consultations under legislation.

It means that I cannot discuss or give views prior or whilst the Statutory Consultation is live.

I’m on the Cabinet paper as the Cabinet Member involved in final decision and therefore cannot show predetermination and have to remain neutral whilst the Statutory Consultation is active.

I have to consider all comments with an open mind.

The only thing I can think it’s like, is Jury Service or Planning Committee."

Quite how discussing a matter with anyone beforehand prevents her keeping an open mind is beyond me. Nor does she state any binding rule or law preventing her from doing so. 

Plainly Cllr Seema Chandwani is mistaken to use Jury Service as an exemplar.  If she has served on a jury then she has forgotten the rules.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/...

Nor is it the same as predetermination by Planning Committee members. (Harringay Online members can easily find helpful material under these headings online.) Is it sensible for Cllr Chandwani to avoid an appearance of bias or predetermination while the public consultation is underway?
I'd have thought so. For the obvious reason that it shows respect to and willingness to learn from what local electors say. It would also suggest that she still has an open mind on the issue. Even views which can be partly or substantially changed in the light of further evidence and reasoned argument. Isn't that what we want from our elected councillors?

I SEE that, in the Ham and High, the leader of the council Opposition has made a number of points about the Cabinet's mishandling of visitor parking permits.

The Council Cabinet need to think more carefully about proposals that are dreamt up by unaccountable employees in the Alexandra House bubble. Which the Cabinet then rubber-stamp due to a lack of care or attention.

Elected persons are supposed to represent Wards, yet the Cabinet itself is largely unaccountable to residents.

Cabinet Member Cllr. Chandwani is quoted as saying, “We need to get value out of our land.”

Getting more "value" has applied more and more to Finsbury Park, seen as a liability and increasingly treated as a profit centre. But there are other considerations beyond extracting higher rent from council assets.

The Borough seems often to be viewed by the council not as a geographic entity, but as though seen through the eyes of estate agents and developers, as land to exploit in any way conceivable.

The Cabinet talks about making tough decisions but avoids the really hard decisions: addressing waste and for example, the sheer numbers of employees on Prime Minister-style pay packets.

Well:

1. Today's news is better, if not conclusive, from the Leader of the Council:

"Dear Nigel, 

 

Thank you for sharing your response to this consultation with us. 

 

Please rest assured that both Cllr Brabazon and I have raised our concerns about this proposal with Haringey Council's Assistant Director for Direct Services and the Cabinet Member for Resident Services Cllr Seema Chandwani. We will also be submitting our objection through the ongoing consultation. 

Best, Anna" [my bold its]

2. I agree with you, Alan, that respect, a willingness to listen and an open mind is what we want from elected councillors. But declining to discuss is, I'm afraid, none of those 3 things. That was my beef. 

Let's see if she and her elected colleagues are now willing to enable Cllr Chadwani and the bureaucrats responsible to climb down - I strongly suspect she was blindsided on matters - and the Council instruct the amendment of the draft Order to delete this unfounded measure, when confidence in those admirable traits may be restored. 

I noticed earlier that the Council described their original effort as 'forward thinking'!!

'In July 2024, we introduced a new forward-thinking Parking Strategy, that has been co-designed with the community'.

[Mis-entered this reply above, sorry, and corrected here for facts - Abela is not the Leader of the Council]

1. Today's news is better, if not conclusive, from Cllr Abela:

"Dear Nigel,

Thank you for sharing your response to this consultation with us.

Please rest assured that both Cllr Brabazon and I have raised our concerns about this proposal with Haringey Council's Assistant Director for Direct Services and the Cabinet Member for Resident Services Cllr Seema Chandwani. We will also be submitting our objection through the ongoing consultation.

Best, Anna" [my bold its]

2. I agree with you, Alan, that respect, a willingness to listen and an open mind is what we want from elected councillors. But Cllr Chadwani's refusal to discuss is, I'm afraid, none of those 3 things. That was my beef.

Let's see if she and her elected colleagues are now willing to climb down - I strongly suspect she was blindsided on matters - and  instruct the amendment of the draft Order to delete this unfounded measure, when confidence in those admirable traits may be restored.

Does anyone know if a Wood Green outer zone visitor permit can be used in Wood Green inner zone? I've found a few messages on here saying this is the case, but wanted to confirm for sure. I live on the border of the two zones.

Pretty certain the answer is No, Max

They can.

There was a consultation a few years back about stopping it but they didn't progress with it.

Hi all - some updates,

  1. Parking Petition - The petition goes to the full council meeting on November 18th, 7:30 PM at Tottenham Town Hall. Thanks to all the signatures, a debate is guaranteed! Tom, the petition owner, will present it in person.

If you're able to join us for support, let us know—it'd be fantastic to have a strong presence there!

Full details here: https://www.minutes.haringey.gov.uk/mgMeetingAttendance.aspx?ID=10854 

  1. Council Meeting Questions - A few people are submitting questions about the parking proposals to the council meeting on November 18th. Questions must be submitted by 10 AM on November 5th. To avoid duplicates, we've started a list (link below). Only one question per person—some questions still need volunteers to submit!

If you can attend in person to ask, wonderful! If not, the questions will still be asked, and you'll receive a response by email.

Question list (please add any you submit)

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/19JBZi6EjeQ5Sd2uE_bCeXKaHgpL7V5W1L2NcZ3DqWeg/edit?usp=sharing

Instructions to submit your question:
https://new.haringey.gov.uk/council-elections/committees-meetings/council-meetings/ask-a-question-full-council 

If this meeting will just focus on the petition what about the responses to the actual consultation?

Hi Roslyn! The consultation doesn't end until November 20th so results can't be discussed at this time. This is a full council meeting that residents are planning to attend to voice their objections to the full council, request that the decision is reversed and have questions answered. This will also be an  opportunity for full council to be involved in a discussion on the topic outside of the cabinet, and hopefully they can represent the views of their constituents. Does it make sense?

RSS

Advertising

© 2024   Created by Hugh.   Powered by

Badges  |  Report an Issue  |  Terms of Service