More Exceptional Resident Parking Charges from Haringey

I've just come across yet another way that Haringey Council stands out amongst its peers as making exceptional and unnecessary parking charges to residents.

Last year, I found that Haringey was alone amongst north London boroughs in refusing to refund unused visitor permits. Although I successfully challenged that on my own account, the Council have since muddied the waters further and now it seems that the staff can't even agree on the situation. But the result is that refunds are refused as a matter of course. 

This week, I came across another exceptional sneak charge for resident parking. 

There are times when the car has to go into hospital. If you're lucky you get a courtesy car, you need to make arrangements to park it. I had to avail myself of a courtesy car this week and, with a heavy heart, trudged up to Wood Green Library to make arrangements. The member of staff was very helpful and processed all the necessary. Finishing off, she handed me my temporary permit and said, "Thank you. That's £30 please".

So, I'm not adding a car, I'm replacing one temporarily - as it happens one with lower emissions than my own car. But they want to charge me £30. It's a uniform charge for 20 days whatever your existing car is. It seems totally out of proportion.

The bizarre proportionality of the charge is even more evident when set against the annual resident permit charge. For the lowest band, the charge is 150% of the annual charge! Yes that's right, the courtesy car charge is 50% more than the full parking permit charge for the whole year! For the next band it's 100% and so on, until by Band 6 it's 30% of the charge. 

At Band 2, the normal parking charge for an annual permit calculated on a daily basis is about 8p. At courtesy car rates it's £1.50 a day - or almost 20 times as much - and that's on top of the annual permit you've already paid for.

This can't be right. So, I thought I'd quickly check the situation in the neighbouring boroughs of Islington, Hackney, Enfield, Camden, Waltham Forest, Barnet and Brent.

ALL the other boroughs make NO charge. You can make a temporary change free of charge, either on line, by email and phone or in person. Even Westminster only charge £10.

So, yet again, where all the other neighbouring boroughs choose to charge nothing, Haringey are making sneaky additional parking charges that hit those least able to pay the hardest. 

Let me be clear, I'm not complaining about the £30. Fortunately, I'm perfectly able to pay it without any hardship. But I'm sure there are plenty of others on extraordinarily tight budgets for whom this charge is a real burden.

After my last experience of inaccuracy/mendacity over visitor parking permit refunds, I may just check that the Council are following their Traffic Management Orders on this. But, either way, this is an unnecessary charge which isn't made by neighbouring councils. It puts an unfair burden on those least able to pay and should be scrapped without delay.