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 Dick Harris on
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Thanks for the update Hugh. If there has been an accumulation of anecdotal reports of misuse of permits, a better response might have been to investigate the matter before taking action. The law of unintended consequences seems to have operated here.
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Permalink Reply by Caitlin on
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Hi All,
Posting this for any of you who haven't been following the new thread.
I have just sent the email below to the Haringay Scruity Comittee requesting that they call-in the decision on daily permits. I urge you to do the same, you can reach them on scrutiny@haringey.gov.uk.
I have also emailed my councillors requesting that they ask the Cabinet to call-in the decision.
There is also a scrunity survey running until September 8th LINK HERE - I suggest we all also use this mechanism to raise the points outlined in this thread, plus any other concerns. Question 11 has an open- end box where these issue can be raised.***email***
Dear Haringey Scrutiny Committee,
I am writing to request that the Scrutiny Committee call in the decision to ‘Discontinue the option for daily visitor permits’ made by the Haringey Cabinet on July 16th as part of a broader Parking Strategy Review. A Statutory Consultation on the matter is planned for Autumn.
This request is made for the following reasons:
1. Inequity
This policy change has significant financial implications for residents, and will only affect the poorest areas of the borough. The analysis below clearly illustrates the huge discrepancy in daily parking charges that this policy will introduce. The darker blue the ward, the more deprived, according to the Haringey 2024 state of the borough report.
You can see from this graphic that this cabinet-endorsed decision will disproportionately impact the poorer parts of the borough. Full analysis is attached.
It is of great concern that the Equality Impact Assessment did not identify this issue, and this illustrates that the cabinet was not provided with sufficient information to make an informed decision.
2. Lack of Evidence
The decision was made based upon ‘circumstantial evidence’ of daily parking permit misuse. This evidence was not presented to the Cabinet. Upon receipt of a Freedom of information request, Haringey Council have admitted that that have no record of this problem:
“The Cabinet report stated circumstantial evidence for the proposal, and this is in the form of anecdotal information which has been brought forward from a range of sources over a number of years. While various sections of the council may hold information, it is not held in a format, nor was it intended to be documented, in manner to be used to supply for such a response’.
You can see the full response here.
Why is a decision with such meaningful, borough wide, impact being taken to consultation to solve a problem that has not been robustly documented or analysed by the Council?
Given that there is no understanding of the scope or nature of permit misuse, how can an assessment of alternative options have been conducted? This is a requirement of a policy change, and no details of alternative options considered were presented in the policy package. Again, this illustrates that the Cabinet was not provided with sufficient information to make an informed decision.
3. Failure to follow due process
The Parking Schemes – Resident Engagement Policy provides (quote) “ a framework for future residential parking scheme design and review”. The Framework requires the following steps:
Pre-public engagement
Public Engagement (co-design stage)
Statutory Consultation
Decision
This policy process has not been followed as part 2 Public Engagement (co-design) did not occur. An online Parking Policy Review consultation took place. This did not meet the criteria of “Public Engagement” because:
Letters and public engagement packs were not provided to all registered properties within the defined area
No street notices were erected
Ward councillors were not be notified of the outcome and the proposed recommendations
Furthermore, the policy states that “The Council will need a minimum response rate of 10% to the public engagement, before any decision can be considered.” Only 100 individuals responded to the online consultation. This does not represent 10% of the adult population affected by this decision.
Given that due process has not been followed, and the Cabinet have been badly advised on this particular issue, it is the duty of the scrutiny committee to call back this decision.
Thank you for your time and consideration of this request. I urge the Scrutiny Committee to exercise its authority to call in the decision for further review, to ensure that any changes to the parking policy are equitable, evidence-based, and follow due process.
Best Regards,
Caitlin
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Excellent message to them, Caitlin!!
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Permalink Reply by Andrew Stillman on
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well done for the email caitlin and for the excellent graphic and well done to hugh for the excellent work in rasing the issue in the first place and pinpointing the issues of inequity and due process and to journalist gabriella jozwiak for sending in the foi.
thank you all.
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I'm just building on all the great work done by Hugh and others in this thread! Please please do also contact you councillors and then scrutiny committee to make sure all our voices are heard.
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And when the consultation comes out I'll try to get the media involved again. We clearly need to watch the Council like hawks.
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Permalink Reply by Anna Abela on
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Dear all,
Thank you once again to everyone who contacted me regarding the recent Cabinet decision to open a statutory consultation on these potential parking policy changes.
- I thought it would be helpful to update you on a meeting that Cllr Zena Brabazon and I had this week with Haringey Council’s (i) Assistant Director for Direct Services and (ii) the Cabinet Member for Resident Services and Tackling Resident Inequality, Cllr Seema Chandwani about this decision.
- During this meeting, it was made very clear to us that no decision has been taken on whether to pursue the policy changes that will be put to consultation. We have been given strong assurances that the views expressed by residents in the statutory consultation will be carefully considered before any policy decision is taken.
- I have also been assured that there are several examples of recent statutory consultations on parking policy (e.g. on the inner Wood Green CPZ; the Alexandra Park CPZ) where the policy changes put to consultation were not pursued by the Council due to concerns raised by residents in the statutory consultation.
- In light of this, I would strongly encourage you to participate in the statutory consultation when it goes live. Alongside raising my concerns with key decisionmakers in Haringey Council, I will also be making my own submission to the statutory consultation, where I will object to the proposed changes to parking permit policy due to the concerns that residents have shared with me.
- The statutory consultation is currently expected in mid-October. Once it goes live, the consultation will be publicised on Haringey Council’s parking consultations webpage, on social media and on lamp posts. I will also receive an alert when the consultation is live and will post this on Harringay Online.
- As you may know, some residents have expressed concern that this policy option is being considered on the basis of anecdotal evidence. During this week’s meeting, I was informed that various members of the public, and ward councillors acting on behalf of residents in their ward, have submitted complaints to the parking policy team about misuse of daily parking permits. To illustrate this with one example of parking permit misuse, there have been complaints that some residents have been giving daily parking permits to individuals from outside London to park for a full day in Haringey before commuting via tube to their job in central London. As a result, some roads in our Borough are full of parked cars that have no connection to Haringey and its residents. While Harringay residents have not raised this with me as an issue in our ward, I understand that this is a problem that councillors in other wards receive frequent complaints about. That said, in my view, residents have made a valid point that more evidence needs to be published to document this concern.
- Some of you have also asked me why an equality impact assessment was not conducted on the policy option going to consultation. I have been informed that this is because equality impact assessments are typically not conducted on potential policy options ahead of a statutory consultation. The equality impact assessment is usually conducted after a statutory consultation, once the Council is actively considering pursuing a particular policy option. That said, I intend to raise residents’ concerns that this policy is likely to have a greater impact on the East of the Borough, rather than the West, in my consultation response.
To conclude, while I fully intend to continue to advocate on behalf of Harringay residents on this issue, I must stress that the main vehicle to influence whether this policy option is pursued is by participating in the upcoming statutory consultation. I will be submitting my concerns through that channel and I would warmly encourage you to do the same.
Best wishes,Cllr Anna Abela
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Permalink Reply by Hugh on
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Hi Anna,
Thanks for chasing this up so assiduously. I truly appreciate it.
I very much hope that the resident pushback on this so far and the involvement of the national media is leading the council to think agin.
However, the outcome of your meeting with Mark Stevens and Seema Chandawani seems still to leave questions unanswered,
- With regards to the question of "why an equality impact assessment was not conducted" , unless I am missing something, an equality impact assessment (EIA) was in fact undertaken by Simon Robertson with advisor Diptasri Basu and approved by Assistant Director for Direct Services, Mark Stevens. It appears on pages 311 - 326 of the Cabinet report pack for 16th July. Since Mark and Seema seem to have told you that no EIA was conducted, if my understanding of the situation is correct, then I have serious doubts about the reliability of everything you were told.
- With regards to the status of the proposed change to the charges, as I understand it, a decision was made by the cabinet on 16th July, subject only to a statutory consultation. As the Council's 2023 "Parking Schemes – Resident Engagement Policy" makes amply clear, "Statutory consultation forms part of the legal process ... It is, therefore, not consultation or engagement with the community". According to the 2023 policy there should have been both a pre-engagement stage and a public engagement (co-design stage). In the absence of groups like the LCSP having any knowledge of the changes to daily charges until after cabinet approval, I am assuming that neither of the stages took place or that if they did that they were extremely limited.
- I'm sure that there was anecdotal evidence and have never disputed it, but a few questions. Firstly why is it not held in council records. Secondly, we have to ask ourselves if evidence of that nature is sufficient for a change of this magnitude. Lastly, why wasn't the consultation process set out clearly in the Council's 2023 "Parking Schemes – Resident Engagement Policy" followed. Surely then any anecdote would be a matter of record.
Since the only option people now have belatedly to engage with the formulation of this policy is the Statutory Consultation, I absolutely agree that they should definitely engage with it fully. I hope that the Council's political antennae are sufficiently pricked to take very careful notice of the collective response.
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