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
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Clive Carter on
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Many months?!
My information requests date back three years!
The requests are for the Alexandra House Valuation Report and the Minutes of the council's three secret Property Boards (all to be un-redacted). My requests have been subject to ~
- the council's Internal Review (more like infernal/interminable review);
- an Appeal to the Information Commissioner (who sided with Haringey); and
- an Appeal to the First Tier Tribunal. This is live.
A Hearing took place on 17 April this year. Neither the Commissioner nor Haringey Council attended. The case continues and I'm hoping for a Decision before Xmas. This year.
The information I seek relates to multi-million pound losses of public money, involving property free-wheeling and dealing over a 36-month period of Local Authority mal/administration.
External investigator Chris Buss was called in. A full version of his report went to the Police; the sanitised version for public consumption of the Buss Report can be downloaded here.
- 2021–April—Strategic Property Board meeting of 11 December 2018
- 2021–May—The council's Corporate Property Board – meetings etc.
- 2021-August—Capital Board & Strategic Property Board: Meetings, Agendas, At...
- 2022-March—Purchase of Alexandra House
The delays, prevarications and multiple requests for extensions from the First Tier Tribunal, suggest the council has something to hide.
Press:
Haringey Council awaits FoI court ruling over property deals
Met Police's Haringey Council 'fraud' case still ongoing
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton
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Clive Carter is still awaiting the outcome of his Tribunal F.o.I appeal; for which Haringey lawyers have secured several postponements.
In my view Haringey's reluctance to be fully open, prompt and candid indicates a lack of due respect to the Freedom of Information principles. Lack of respect as well for Haringey Electors.
Hopefully, the Tribunal will decide that in the case pursued by Clive Carter the wider Public Interest in openness and accountability is more important than bureaucratic delays, and the curtain of secrecy. Hopefully too, Haringey's senior staff and politicians will take the view that openness and accountability to residents should in any case prevail over the desire to avoid embarrassment for mistakes.
I would also suggest something more truly welcome. That the Council Leader and Chief Executive could together announce publicly that Haringey has decided to become an Open and Accountable Borough as far as possible and whenever possible, as promptly as fully and truthfully as possible. To avoid delays, obscurity, secrecy and murkiness.Wouldn't that be refreshing if not amazing?
Because as long as any elected Council gives the message of wanting to avoid disclosing, acknowledging, and learning from their mistakes, the longer and more strongly it suggests a culture where avoidance and even cover-up is valued over learning and improvement. As long as this culture continues, large sums of public money may continue to be wasted.
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ALTHOUGH the Hearing was on 17 April 2024, the case has not yet ended. There has been delay after delay after delay. It may be decided before Xmas.
The current council leader (Cllr Ahmet) has claimed that our Borough's budget gap is £51.4 million.
However, the council has still found enough down the back of the sofa to be able to pay a barrister in order to defend the information case that I brought against the ICO more than 12 months ago.
Information in which I have zero pecuniary interest, but whose possible public interest will be determined by a Judge.
Information by the way, that relates to huge losses in property wheeling and dealing under the last administration. Irregular deals over 36 months that have had the attention of an external regulator and the Police.
The losses on property deals is at least £13 million (two deals: Alex House and Cranwood). However, we may never know the true extent of taxes incineratored. The property team is not necessarily the most competent in London.
Someone once said that, what is good for General Motors is good for America. I'm sure that council lawyers would say that what is good for the council is good for residents. I don't think that would necessarily be true.
The council has never put much faith in the old adage, look after the pennies and the pounds will take care of themselves. Certainly the council is taking care of 40 (forty) employees: they're paid between £100,000 and £220,000.
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Permalink Reply by AndrewAW1 on
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That reminds me, I need to report them to the ICO (again) for not responding to my previous FOI.
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From the documents it does suggest that there will be a statutory consultation before the changes happen. Hopefully they may actually tell people about it if that is the case.
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Permalink Reply by Hugh on
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Well spotted, though it's always more difficult to get the Council to listen to the responses of a consultation once something has been given been given council approval.
We should be in no doubt that the Council has already approved the policy "subject to the outcome of statutory consultation". The policy will not go back to the elected politicians for a second bite. The running of the consultation and the decision on any changes following its completion has been delegated to officer level. See Section 3.5. It says that the Cabinet:
3.5 Delegates authority to the Head of Highways and Parking to:
a) carry out all required statutory consultations regarding the proposed changes to charges and parking policy detailed in Appendix D and
b) makeallnecessarytrafficmanagementorders(“TMOs”),havingconsidered any objections received in response to the statutory consultation, to implement the proposed changes, subject to key decisions being considered by Cabinet; and
c) wheretheHeadofHighwaysandParkingconsidersappropriate,todecide to either (i) not proceed with or (ii) modify one or more of the proposed TMOs to address any matters arising from the statutory consultation or (iii) to refer the matter(s) to Cabinet for determination.
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Permalink Reply by Nigel on
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How can we buttonhole this "Head of Highways", Hugh? He can only act lawfully, ie reasonably. It is at least arguable that if a significant and material matter or flaw has been pointed out to him that was not considered by the Council when they decided on the policy, he cannot lawfully implement it, and must go back to the Council. Maybe remind him of that, cc the "Head of Legal"?
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She has been given delegated authority to take decisions on behalf of the council.
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Unfortunately by the stage of a 'statutory consultation' the deed is already done, as those fighting CPZs know only too well. It is merely an administrative fiction giving notice that a change is happening rather than an opportunity to affect the outcome of the process...
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They must do,surely. I have workmen starting tomorrow and have the daily permit ready. Has anyone contacted local councillors yet and do people think it's worth getting MPs involved?
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Several people have started emailing councillors (myself included!) So please join us! There are several draft emails through this email thread, I have also attached my own to this message. I have also emailed Catherine West, and I know some tottenham folks have contacted David Lammy - please join us!
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