It must come as little surprise that Local Authorities, especially in London; have made a large surplus in car parking charges and fines. As usual the motorist is the milch cow for local government exploitation.
Parking charges are providing huge cash surpluses for some English councils, according to the RAC Foundation. The 359 councils across England had a total current account surplus of £565m from on and off-street parking schemes in 2011-12, according to the figures. (BBC NEWS).
Close to where we live is a small shopping centre with a couple of banks, newsagents, charity shops, butchers, a library, a small but excellent Co-op, etc. The LA has just imposed parking fees for use of the car park, and also parking meters outside shops on the basis this will enable residents to park rather than commuters as they state that the car park is often full with them. This is complete and utter rubbish. The park is a couple of miles from the railway station and I’ve been there at various times of the day and have never ever had a problem parking. Less that two miles away is a huge Tesco which sells pretty well everything so people will drive there rather than pay to park. In my opinion this is a revenue raising scheme rather than any thought of helping local residents. I think it will kill of the shops; I know that several of them are already under pressure due to high and escalating rents and rates.Few people are going to pay to park to go to the newsagents for their daily paper!
Havering is not alone. Here in Redbridge parking improvements are being made around a number of local shopping areas.
ReplyDeleteIn at least one case (Manford Way, Hainault) it is reducing the provision immediately in front of shops by 50%. To balance this additional provision has been made nearby. The more cynical among us suspect that this is a prelude to a further attempt to introduce charging - a move that has been successfully resisted in the past.
My last attempt to shop in Havering some years ago was a quick call at Tesco in Collier Row. The car park to the rear is a council one where I was astonished to discover that they even charge for the use of disabled bays.
I wrote about it to our London Assembly Member who is also a Havering councillor (raking it in!). He neither acknowledged nor replied to the email, but then Roger Evans has earned a reputation for that.
At the time when I had to pay to park in a designated disabled bay Havering Council was busy handing out I-pads to its members. Such are council priorities.