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 Alan Stanton on
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Niall you refer to the "the imperative for the council to ‘balance the books on Parking"...
I'm many years out of date on this particular legal framework. When a Labour councillor, I took-up cases of local residents who'd been unfairly and - in a few cases illegally - penalised by Haringey. At the time, my view - reported publicly - was that this was a type of highway robbery.
It seemed to me that our (and my) elected Council used Penalty Charge Notices (|PCNs) as a handy means of running a profit-making business. My understanding then was that councils were not permitted to run their Parking accounts at a loss; but were entitled to apply any surplus to transport related purposes. But this was not the primary purpose of the legislation. Laws change of course and I may be way out of date.
Also at that time, I had very helpful contacts with a Barnet resident, Derek Dishman, blogging as Mr Mustard as a hobby. I just looked him up and not only is he still active but his latest reported "case" shows Haringey up to their bad old shameful ways: going for the money instead of giving a sympathetic service and properly considering the mitigating circumstances when first presented; then cancelling the PCN.
Niall, I thought you might want to make contact with Derek. https://lbbspending.blogspot.com/
Best wishes, Alan.
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If anyone wants to read about the recent Haringey driver advised by Mr Mustard, it was on 10 September 2024 and headed:
Persistence pays - all councils, not just Haringey
~~~~~~~More links to Mr Mustard online:
Mr Mustard (mrmustard@zoho.com)
This morning I also spent an informative and entertaining twenty minutes or so reading some of his old posts on Twitter (when that site was still alive.)
https://x.com/_mrmustardOne feature of Derek's posts is that he's ready to acknowledge when some borough's Parking Service delivers a policy or takes a decision which is fair, balanced and respectful of how ordinary residents actually want to live their lives. When that happens Mr Mustard may step forward and invite them: "to take a bow.
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Permalink Reply by Paul Soper on
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Still a little perplexed - having gone through CPZ consultations from the first Crouch End scheme in only 2 roads (because Islington has introduced one on Mountview Road) through to the implementation of Crouch End A & B and then having to get Hornsey Vale added to Stroud Green because of the insanity of being the last bit south of Tottenham Lane to have a CPZ the Statutory Consultation was the stage AFTER the initial consultation process where the final scheme as agreed was put out to statutory consultation to make sure that there were no legal problems with the implementation. It would seem that Haringey are now doing away with an initial consultation and moving directly to Statutory Consultation, maybe hoping no-one will notice? Usual consultation run for 6 to 12 weeks with public engagement, statutory usually lasts 21 days and is publicised on lamp-posts and web-page as explained by the councillors - it is not the same thing...
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I hope people took the opportunity to watch the re-screening of the drama "The Project."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Project_(film)
It's uncanny how closely it seems to resemble at least some of the key current events now that the Starmer Project has succeeded.One similarity is the way that under Blair some deeply stupid and unjust decisions were made on the basis that following previous Tory policies was seen as unavoidable. Another aspect was showing how Party discipline meant that decent, principled new MPs were threatened, bullied and bribed - with promises of promotion - into following the Party Line, The filmed drama is said to have been based on actual events.
As onceuponatime an elected Haringey councillor I was occasionally put under pressure to follow the local Labour line. Including on occasions with threats of loss of the Party whip. I just ignored these attempts. I lacked all ambition which helped. And didn't fancy freebies like a trip to Cannes; or events tickets etc. etc. And my wife can afford to buy her own clothes.
I'm pleased that residents are objecting to the foolish proposal for higher daily parking charges. But also very disappointed that there don't seem to be far more ambitious interventions proposed on HoL to challenge local political decisions. Especially on the new budget.
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What interventions would you suggest, Alan?
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Oh dear! Where to start!
And personally I'm uncomfortable telling other people what to do. I prefer to begin by listening. My first really enjoyable work experience was as a social worker in a team whose members had very wide backgrounds and were generous in sharing their experience, knowledge and ideas. I'd hope that among HoL members there is at least a potential pool of life and work experiences to come up with fresh ideas which match and maybe even exceed those of the local political parties.
Roslyn, I wonder if you saw Ash Sarka's interview with Eyal Weizman of Forensic Architecture?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhn51LDDavY&t=626sWeizman says that "every problem in the world needs to create a community of practice to address it."
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I didn't but thanks - I lhear Ash when she's on Moral Maze. Head and shoulders above most of the others.
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Hi all,
An update here. I have been in touch with Ayshe Simsek, a member of the Haringey Scrutiny Committes. She let me know hat this topic was discussed at the recent scrutiny committee. Full details not yet available, as the minutes are awating approal, but she has confimed that that the decision is "not implemented and will come to cabinet on the 10th of December" i.e. will be referred back to cabinet for determination (bit in yellow below)
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Permalink Reply by Hugh on
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Thanks Caitlin. That's reassuring, but Democratic Services and Scrutiny Manager, Ayshe Simsek who acts as secretary to the Scrutiny Committee, seems to have an understanding of the situation that is different to that given in the extract of the published minutes you posted. That extract shows that the decision ONLY needs to be referred back to the Cabinet in the event that the Head of Highways recommends changing it. In this case that would mean that it would go through on the nod of Highways if they see fit to retain the decision to abolish daily parking permits. Only if a change to that decision is recommended will it be referred back to cabinet.
As I've said before, my hope is that the attention drawn to this on HoL and in particular by the BBC makes it almost impossible for the decision to proceed unchanged. Thank goodness for mandatory legal safeguards such as the stautory consultation.
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Hi hugh
That extrac is not the minutes, it is from the original public reports pack. I send that image to Ayshe and asked:
"To confirm my understanding, does this mean that the head of highways and parking has decided to refer the matter back to the Cabinet for determination following the consultation? (i.e .the bit in yellow below from the public reports pack?)"
and her response was
"Yes the decision is not implemented and will come to cabinet on the 10th of December. "
Will confirm this again once the minutes from the scrutiny session are released - will also keep an eye out for the agenda of the December 10th meeting as details are not available yet.
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Thanks, I'm not disputing your reporting of the exchange with the Democtraic Services Manager, but I am questioning yet again the way the Council is explaining the Cabinet's decision. Minutes or reports pack, the words in your extract are what the Cabinet agreed to (I assume that's why you posted them?) and their meaning is what I explained in my last reply.
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