Fair play for parking

Published: 9 April, 2010

• LABOUR is promising a £10 cut in the cost of an annual residents’ parking permit as part of our council election pledges.
The cost of an annual residents’ parking permit is currently £120, making the £10 cut a reduction of 8.3 per cent. Cutting the cost of the permits by £10 a year is part of our “fair parking” pledge to local residents.
The reduction in the cost of the residents’ parking permit will be paid for by scrapping the loss-making and very unpopular motorbike parking charges, predicted to make a loss of £430,000 this year.
Cutting the cost of a parking permit will go some way to compensating residents for the council’s policy of suspending parking bays to allow contractors to use the road as building sites.
The council has been charging residents nearly £4million a year for residents’ parking permits and then raking in an additional £7.5million a year by suspending the same residents’ parking bays and charging builders for the using the residents’ parking bays.
In addition, in 2008, 996 parking fines were issued to residents for parking in a suspended parking bay even though they were displaying a valid permit, raking in a further £120,000 .
Overall our aim is to provide effective and value-for-money services to local residents, with parking a key service for our attention.
Westminster City Council has treated residents like “cash-machines” for too long. It is time that common sense and fair play took over and that is what we are pledged to do.
CLLR PAUL DIMOLDENBERG
Leader of the Labour Group