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
- Attachments:
Replies to This Discussion
-
Permalink Reply by Niall on
-
Thank you Anna for this considered response. I am one of your constituents who has emailed you regarding this issue. Zena has also responded via email and has requested a meeting with the service director - it is heartening that Harringay councillors are taking this matter seriously as it will have a significant impact on many residents.
You have committed to ensure that ‘residents concerns will be appropriately considered’ in the statutory consultation . This is reassuring, given that the Cabinet has already decided to abolish one day permits - subject to that consultation. As you can see from the comments here, many are cynical about the process but I believe that councillors can make a difference by ensuring the consultation is detailed and genuine.
Some suggestions to make that happen:
- All users of Parking Permits are emailed/messaged alerting them to the process and how they can respond
- Data shared (via council website?) on current one day pass usage across the borough and linked to Caitlin’s work on permit cost and ward deprivation. I’m sure the Cabinet would wish to re-run the Equality Impact Assessment given the glaring failure in the original report. That also should be shared
- Data on misuse of one day passes and benchmarked against comparable boroughs and how they tackle the issue
- Alternative proposals/solutions to address the revenue shortfall and misuse.For example:
- weekly passes for local traders/builders and registered family members?
- limit number of day passes per household (why 999 passes??)
- Increasing charges elsewhere eg second vehicle use
- monitoring of app data on misuse of passes - easily done now that it is electronic
There are of course many other ideas and I’m sure the Cabinet would not have made such a toxic choice in the first place if they had been properly advised of the issues and alternatives.
Thank you again for your helpful response and please keep us updated via HoL. I will share your message via my street WhatsApp group
-
Permalink Reply by Roslyn Byfield on
-
Exellent post, Niall!
-
Permalink Reply by Michael Anderson on
-
The equality impact on socio-economic status is cursory to say the least (see screenshot below). While data may not be held in the socio-economic status of individuals it certainty is on geography and deprivation and that can be easily cross tabulated
-
-
This is the heart of it Michael. Caitlin's graphic illustration of the inequity of parking charges in Haringey are stark enough, but the exponential increases created by abolishing the day pass are going to be impossible to justify by councillors on 'the wrong side of the tracks'.
And if councillors cannot find a way to reverse this, every time a family member/friend visits, or tradespeople are working on their house/flat, constituents will be reminded of this policy blunder - it won't go away.
-
-
I contacted Susana (of BBC Radio London) to see what was happening about the Council's response and she checked (as she's currently on leave) and found Seema was interviewed yesterday. Just listened and have to say I thought she came across as someone (which of course is the case) who has been caught out and is on the back foot.
-
Permalink Reply by Dick Harris on
-
Thanks Roslyn. The relevant part of the programme starts at 1.14 and lasts about 7 minutes.
-
Permalink Reply by Zena Brabazon on
-
Hi Everyone
To follow up from Anna's email. I have written to the officers about the issue and Anna and I will be having a meeting with them in a couple of weeks. Thank you to everyone who has written to me - I have replied to emails, but if someone hasn't had a reply, please let me know.
The consultation on these proposals will be happening early in the autumn. I have asked that the officers ensure this is widely publicised, and when I know the dates I will post on HoL. The crucial thing is that you must make sure that any views you have expressed here are sent in all the comments made here are sent in as formal responses to the process so local views are incorporated officially into the consultation.
Zena
Zena Brabazon
Cllr, Harringay ward
-
-
Zena thank you.
You encourage us that "comments made here" [on HoL] are sent in as formal responses to the [Statutory Consultation] process.
Come on everyone in due course.....
© 2024 Created by Hugh.
Powered by
