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 Hugh on
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I've had a few messages from people saying that they've been told by one person or another that there's been no decision on this issue, that there's only a decision to hold a consultation. I disagree. Here's why.
This is how the part of the cabinet meeting about the parking review ended:
Cllr. Peray Ahmet (Leader of Council): "Ok, if we can move to the resolution which is to agree the recommendations as set on on page 240. Do we all agree?..... Agreed? .....Ok."
The "Page 240" to which Cllr Ahmet referred is the second page of the "Parking Strategy and Policy/Charges Review" contained in the meeting reports pack (added at the foot of the original post above).
That section has the following:
Recommendations
It is recommended that Cabinet:
3.1. Approves the Parking Strategy attached as Appendix A.
3.2. Notes the responses received to the informal consultation regarding the parking policy review attached to this report at Appendix B and 6.18.
3.3. Approves the changes to parking and other charges as set out in Appendix D (section 2 – paragraphs 2.1-2.3 and section 3 – paragraphs 3.1-3.5) and notes that, subject to the outcome of statutory consultation, those charges will be added to the Council’s approved Fees & Charges and come into effect at the earliest practicable date.
3.4. Approves the changes to parking policy as detailed in Appendix D (section 4 – paragraphs 4.1 and 4.3), subject to the outcome of statutory consultation.
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) make all necessary traffic management orders(“TMOs”), having considered any objections received in response to the statutory consultation, to implement the proposed changes, subject to key decisions being considered by Cabinet; and
c) where the Head of Highways and Parking considers appropriate, to decide 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.4. Reasons for decision
4.1. The Council needs to ...... etc
As things stand today, the cabinet has decided as a group to approve the review. Yes, the decision is subject to a consultation; the Council has no choice on this. It is a legal requirement. However, there is no legal requirement to do any more than pay lip service to the consultation outcomes. Anyone who's been paying half a mind to consultations in the borough (and probably most boroughs) over the past twenty years will attest to this.
Whilst I don't set myself up as an expert on Council procedure, make no mistake, as I understand things, the decision to enact the review has been made. There are only three ways forward to change the decision to reflect residents concerns:
- The cabinet member can call the decision back for reconsideration
- The scrutiny Committee can call the decision in
- Understanding the strong opposition to the daily parking change, the Council can break its golden rule and actually pay attention to the consultation results and use that as a way to reverse a very poor decision.
As to options 1 and 2, there are very good grounds for calling in the decision. 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. Apparently Cllr Chandwani has been badly advised. In response to a question at the cabinet meeting related to this issue, the councillor gave the following answer:
"So I think what you're asking about is the fact that we're abolishing daily visitor permits. So, just that everyone is really clear, visitor permits are here and they're here to stay. What we looked at is the fact that if you were to buy a daily visitor permit then you are paying £4 for the whole day. If you were to park by the hour, it's roughly about one pound something per an hour. So, really we were incentivising people to stay and park their car for the whole day for £4 or park per an hour for roughly about three and a half hours if they paid per an hour.
"What we heard from residents and businesses is that people parking all day didn't allow people to kinda use those spaces fully and what we did hear is that people were parking their vehicles then going off to work in the City and then coming back and using it as quite a cheap car parking space. So, this is a lot about us putting value on the land that we have for parking and how much is that worth and if I was going to park for three hours and had to pay £4, but then I can also park for eight hours and pay £4, it doesn't make any sense.
"So, I think the hourly rate is the fairest way to go forward and that way it allows that kind of turn-around and churn to allow everyone to use those spaces, specially around businesses where people don't want you to park all day and then go off to work and come back, that actually people can park outside your house. So, I do think there is a current unfairness that this is correcting to make more fair."
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Permalink Reply by Caitlin on
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I agree with you Hugh, it is also confirmed in the minutes.
Excerpt:
"The report further sought approval of several parking policy/charges changes that supported the delivery of this new strategy."
"RESOLVED"
"To approve the changes to parking and other charges as set out in Appendix D (sect. 2 – paras 2.1-2.3 and section 3 .."
Please also see attached image of the minutes that also includes the incorrect £4 charge. - Attachments:
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I note the paraphrasing of Cllr Chandwani's response in the minutes. The version I've reproduced in my last comment is verbatim.
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Not disagreeing with Hugh or anyone but even though this was 'passed' it's not set in stone, is it? It can be reversed if there are sufficient objections and we can easily prove that the correct procedure was not followed.
This pm the political journalist from BBC Radio London is calling me. If that talk then becomes an interview request shall I put you forward, Hugh?
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Yes, the current status can be changed. I rarely add a post just to complain. Usually my motivation is to alert people to an issue to offer the opportunity to mobilise to create change. That was what motivated me to start the site back in 2007. On the current issue, I spelled out three routes for change in my last and rather long comment.
Most of my thinking on the daily parking issue I’ve set out on this thread in the original post and subsequent comments. If your chap wants a chat, happy to do that. Is he a friend?
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Permalink Reply by Brian on
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The correct procedure was not followed in the latest Hornsey CPZ consultation. Council policy is that such consultations should be 'resident led.' In the 3 years preceding the consultation only 6 people had emailed the Council regarding parking issues none of whom had requested a CPZ.
The consultation letter stated that there had been numerous complaints from individuals and groups stating problems with parking. (This was incorrect. I wrote asking which groups had complained. I never received a reply. It is clear that Haringey Council breached its guidelines making this a Council led consultation - NOT resident led.)
The consultation went ahead 56% of residents voted Against / 38 % For. A CPZ was introduced in those roads which voted - even marginally For. See my previous post explaining this.)
A complaint was put in to the local Council Ombudsman. He agreed that Haringey Council had acted incorrectly but decided to do nothing as he said they had amended their procedures.
Good luck pushing the 'incorrect procedure' line.
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Hi Brian,
I am interested in know more about this, please can you point me your previous article? Thank so much
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It does seem bizarre that they didn't actually check how much a day permit cost (£5 rather than £4) before discussing this.
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Let's be charitable and assume the cllr misspoke. We all do it from time to time.
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Repeating it a number of times does make me suspect it is more than that, not big in the scheme of things but suggesting poor briefing or poor research. I'd probably be more inclined to be charitable to councillors if they ever responded to emails.
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Permalink Reply by Maddy on
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It's clear this is totally a business-focussed decision and pays no mind to the needs of residents to have family visit and work done in their homes. I live on the Green Lanes end of a road closest to a very busy part of the shopping area and I have no trouble finding a space at most times of day, mostly very near my house, except on Sundays when the regulations don't apply. I don't at all understand on what basis they have made this stupid judgment!
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