Will our streets become a hospital overspill car park?

Published: 7 January, 2011

• I CAN see that the Town Hall’s parking “roamer” scheme makes sense for many Islington residents, but not for us in the Whitehall Park area, in the far north of the borough. 

We are miles from central Islington – it is far nearer to go to Crouch End or Highgate for shopping. And the other problem is that we become an overspill car park for Whittington Hospital (which is shamefully short of parking). 

Before the residents’ parking scheme came in, it was almost impossible to park here and cars would drive round and round waiting for a space.

I also find it shocking that the council could institute such an enormous change without consulting residents. It probably knew there would be strong objections, and I hope there are.

LYNN BARBER
N19 

• YOUR reporter seems to have taken too hasty a glance at the new parking permit charges  (Gas-guzzlers feel parking charges pain, December 31).

The charge for my formerly band C vehicle, emitting 135g/km, has not gone down from £55 to £35. It has gone up to £81. That’s more than a 47 per cent increase. 

What used to be band C has now been split into three bands, D, E and F.  

I had only just renewed my permit when I had a (non-road) accident which has prevented me driving for three months, during which I took my car off the road.  

But when I did the calculation about temporarily turning in my resident’s permit, I quickly discovered it was more economical to hang onto it than to renew at the new rate.  

So I am actually paying for three months worth of permit when I am neither parking on nor driving on Islington’s roads. How about a free extension for a period when the car is the subject of a Statutory Off Road Notification declaration?

AB 
N1

• THE Labour council’s new parking policy is creating something of a stink. We have had the slipshod way in which it was voted into place without any debate, the remarkably cack-handed manner of the (late in the day) public consultation – costing more than £10,000 for first-class postage and sent out over the Christmas holiday – and complete confusion over implementation dates. Has it already started or will it begin only once the consultation is over at the end of January.

This is even before we get onto the details: up to 95 per cent rise in residents’ parking permit fees, up to 100 per cent rise in business parking permit fees, up to 65 per cent rise in pay-and-display fees. 

And we have a borough-wide “roamer” policy that effectively tramples all over many hard-fought-for controlled parking zone timings. 

From the north of the borough to the south, residents are finding out that, although the council is making them pay a lot more for parking, at the same time parking is being offered free of charge to all-comers.

One would have thought, in the face of all this, that the council would have the wherewithal to set up a public meeting, but in fact the exact opposite is true. 

It’s as though Labour is running scared of the issue.

So that residents may be able to publicly air their opinions, I am organising a public meeting for Thursday, January 27, at a venue to be arranged. 

In the meantime I urge residents to write to Keely Woods at Islington Council, Town Hall, Upper Street, London N1 2UD with their objections.

CLLR ARTHUR GRAVES
Lib Dem, Junction ward

• ISLINGTON Council conducted a postal ballot of residents some time ago about penalising gas-guzzlers. 

It declared at the time that it would abide strictly by the wishes of residents, although it was clear that this promise was mainly motivated by a wish for electoral success. When residents were told of the result of the ballot, I realised we had never received a ballot paper and that only a tiny percentage of residents had responded.  

Nonetheless the council seemed to feel it had secured a mandate to penalise gas-guzzlers. 

I am no great lover of gas-guzzlers but I object to councils pursuing political policies (I feel their job should be to run services as efficiently as possible). I also object to councils viewing their residents as “punters” whom they can exploit.  

But I was particularly incensed when I read the question which had been put to the vote. It did not ask whether it is those cars which are capable of polluting more which should be charged more but whether or not those cars which actually pollute more should be charged more, the point made by Keith McDowall. 

I wrote to the council pointing out that the ballot did not give it a mandate to penalise all large-engined, petrol cars. I mentioned that, as the ballot had been organised, at huge expense to the local taxpayer, by the Electoral Reform Society (ERS), one could assume the question had been carefully drafted and any failure to put the correct question could not be an oversight.  

It responded by saying that, in effect, I was being pedantic. 

I then wrote to the ombudsman, who agreed with my point but said the council had the powers in any case to put up parking charges in any way it wished without reference to residents so my objection was largely technical.  

As we were travelling at the time, I did not take matters any further, although I could have pointed out that the council had specifically agreed to give up its rights to do what it wanted and instead would do exactly as residents voted for the council to do. Residents had not voted for what the council is now doing so it is not empowered to do it. 

I still feel that this is a case of misgovernance, which the council has created by its own ineptitude and its wish to curry favour with residents. It wasted our money using the ERS and, even though the ERS may at first sight have given the outcome some dubious respectability, it has not provided the mandate the council claims. 

JOHN AND JANET MURPHY
N1