Objections ignored

Published: 25 February, 2011

• COUNCIL officials have produced a report on the results of the consultation on the hours of the residents’ roamer parking, only four days after the consultation closed. 

According to the report, the council received 173 emails and 135 phone calls. The majority of the emails were “opposed to the scheme” and the majority of phone calls “in favour of the scheme”. The council concluded that the hours would be changed and ignored the objections to the overall scheme.  

The “consultation” asked about changing the hours to 11am to 3pm. Parking permit holders received a letter about the proposed change of hours and were invited to phone or write in. As no one else was given a phone number for parking services, this presumably generated the large number of calls “in favour”. The council report thus compares apples with pears by making no distinction between emails opposed to the scheme overall and phone calls in favour of the change of hours.

Only the residents with on-street parking were consulted (by letter). That excludes all council tenants, people who live on car-free estates and the majority of Islington residents who don’t have cars, despite the negative impact the scheme will have on congestion and air quality affecting us all.

The Jan/Feb issue of Islington Now stated that the roamer scheme “has been altered following a consultation and will now operate from 11am to 3pm”. Anyone wishing more information was invited to consult the website. 

This is hardly an invitation to respond to a consultation, more a declaration that a consultation has already happened, but despite this more than 173 people took the trouble to write in objecting to the principle of the scheme.

It appears that the “consultation” was flawed. Some residents were asked a question about hours of the scheme, while others who had not been consulted directly were objecting to the principle of the scheme which is designed to encourage more trips by car, generating congestion and worsening air pollution.

The executive member for the environment promises the scheme will be monitored, but as there is no funding for this, it is hard to see how it will be done.

CAROLINE RUSSELL
Islington Green Party

• ISLINGTON  Council has received an overwhelmingly negative written response to the new roamer parking policy. Yet, the policy is now set to start because apparently there were “telephone calls” in favour of the scheme. 

The council leader has urged residents to “give it a chance”, but it does beg the question: to whom should people complain if it turns into an unmitigated disaster? Certainly not  Paul Smith, the Labour councillor in charge of the new parking policies and charges. He has consistently declined to answer residents’ concerns, saying only last week that residents who raise questions about parking policy “have too much time on their hands”.

We invite residents to report problems or concerns direct to their nearest Lib Dem councillor, or to me at arthur.graves@islington.gov.uk. We will continue to support residents who are unfairly ticketed as a result of the confusion arising from the botched implementation of the new parking policy.

CLLR ARTHUR GRAVES
Lib Dem transport spokesman