Now that summer is coming to an end and everyone will be back in the office, I'm wondering whether we think there is going to be any movement on the decision to remove daily parking permits?
Does anyone know what the next steps may be? Is it this consultation that is being talked about or will our councillors demand this is reviewed?
And a nudge if anyone hasn't contacted our councillors about it - please do. There are so many template letters going again. This will impact us all financially!
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Hi Alice. Don't know if you've seen this thread from Hugh - it's a good summary of where things currently stand.
I added to Hugh’s post that I had heard back from one of our three Haringay councillors, Anna Abela and they will be meeting with the Assistant Director for Director Services and the Cabinet Member for Resident Services on Tuesday 3rd September to put the concerns residents raised - and alternative ideas to abolishing the Day Parking pass.
I replied, asking if our councillors can request the Scrutiny Ctte to call in the decision? If so, will they do so?
I haven’t heard back, but it would be good if as many residents as possible email our councillors before this Tuesday
Cllr Anna Alba " ><anna.alba@haringey.gov.uk>
Cllr Zena Brabazon " ><zena.brabazon@haringey.gov.uk>,
Cllr Gina Adamou " ><gina.adamou@haringey.gov.uk>
I'm in Tottenham Central and have emailed my councillors twice but have had no reply at all. A poor show. I also contacted David Lammy again with no reply. I know he's busy but he does have an office with staff.
David Lammy’s office sends a standard response saying this is a matter for your local Councillors.
There's also a Scrutiny Cafe event on Sept 20, to which I was exceptionally invited. I wondered if that was related to this issue. I think anyone can attend, but they ask you to send an email to het them know you want to go. It's an option for people who want the Council held to account on this issue.
Out of interest does anyone have a best guess what will happen to existing purchased daily passes? Do they expire on the app? Will they be revoked.
Would it be sensible to purchase a chunk of them now whilst they are still available?
I made a further FOI request for data about the quantity of VP’s households are buying over a typical year and below is the response i recieved:
Summary of issued daily visitor permits (virtual and paper), for the period 02/09/2023-01/09/2024:
Daily VP issued category |
Count of address |
Sum of Permits issued |
<20 |
11546 |
76871 |
20-49 |
3141 |
92535 |
50-99 |
1195 |
79246 |
100-299 |
545 |
85407 |
300+ |
38 |
15592 |
Grand Total |
16465 |
349651 |
*We cannot provide the Ward profile as the parking IT system does not hold Ward details.
In response to the (other) question – (This question was about any action that has been taken to investigate these households. If no action has been taken, this would warrant a simple Answer to that effect.) They said:
‘Investigations have been undertaken at various stages over a period of time, with varying outcomes. As stated previously 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’.
To me this essentially suggests the Council has not looked into the individual households that might be buying suspiciously high numbers of permits.
If you are unhappy with how we have responded to your request you can ask us to conduct an Internal Review. If so, please contact the Feedback & Resolutions Team. (Please note you should do so within two months of this response.)
Thanks, Gina. That’s the second time we’ve seen “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” recently. I’m always reluctant to cry conspiracy, but I can’t help beginning to wonder if that’s a new stock phrase for avoiding the handing out of properly requested FOI information.
I meant to add that, as you can see, 38 households account for 15,592 permits, that’s an average of 410 each in the year, and the second largest category of user has an average of 157 each. If these are being resold at a £10 profit each there are tidy sums being made illegally.
So yes, it does appear that some re-selling at a profit may be taking place. However, there are a number of ways the Council could clamp down on this. Firstly by limiting the number each household could have to say, 40 or 50 a year (which certainly far exceeds my needs for a few visitors). Or they could alter the application scheme to ask for the name, and relationship/reason for visit when the car registration is input, this would likely act as a deterrent to wrongdoers who could feasibly be caught out for providing false information by an investigator. Maybe both.
i also doubt that it’s true the Council can’t filter this data by Ward -they wil certainly have the postcode for each household. But it wouldn’t add much value -we can probably assume these are clustered around the Spurs stadium.
Anyway, the point is that they have made no effort to avoid inconveniencing all constituents and unequally discriminating against the most economically deprived.
I will not be able to attend the scrutiny cafe which Hugh describes on 20th September, but i hope someone else can raise this. The information came from Anne Cunningham, Head of Highways and Parking.
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