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Rise in parking revenue is staggering
• THE Liberal Democrats and Tories campaigned on “fairer parking policies” in the local election of 2006.
Now we learn that Camden’s parking revenue has gone up by a staggering 22 per cent in two years, since the Lib Dem/Tory administration took over.
Last year, 559,156 parking tickets were issued, and £22.7 million brought in to the council’s coffers – an increase of £4 million on the last year. This is the biggest rise next to neighbouring Westminster. Does this sound like a “fairer parking policy”?
You would think that, with all the talk about getting cars off the road for the sake of the environment, there should be fewer parking tickets, not more!
Let’s have a full explanation from the new administration, because this sounds like they are saying one thing and doing another. And while we are about it, let’s hear specifically what the additional £4 million is to be spent on.
Cllr Penny Abraham
Shadow Executive Member for Environment
Labour, Bloomsbury Ward
• THE Lib Dems should come clean over their parking plans for Fortune Green.
Considering all the noise they made before coming to power, parking under the Lib Dems has got worse, not better.
The council made £22.7 million from parking this year, up £4 million from last year. Here in Fortune Green, parking is still a problem – spaces have actually been removed from Mill Lane, a popular shopping street.
Now it seems the council is going to begin consultation, conveniently after the current by-election is over, on the parking zone boundaries. Are they planning to cut the size of the local zones or introduce new ones?
They should come clean on their plans before the election, not after.
Tulip Siddiq
Labour candidate for Fortune Green
• I recently offered to help my next door neighbour when she was moving to Paris.
Unknown to me she had two bays suspended and I was partially parked in one of them. I discovered a warden about to ticket two cars belonging to my downstairs neighbour. I rang their doorbell but it turned out they had gone on holiday the day before.
They ultimately had to pay nearly £1,200 to retrieve their cars!
I asked the warden if he was going to ticket my car and he said “No”.
After ascending two flights of stairs to my friend’s flat, I descended a few minutes later with some of her property to discover that I had been ticketed. I have since met the warden in the street but he cannot admit to my having asked him if he was going to ticket my car, being fixated on my going to my neighbour’s door. I certainly was not going to ask him about his health.
If he had said “Yes” then I would have obviously moved my car.
The matter is complicated by the fact that the notice concerning the suspension was attached to another suspension which has been in place since last summer for seven bays because of building work.
So the council are getting a year’s income from suspended bays for at least seven bays as well as householders’ permit fees.
In the past the council have sometimes notified residents in writing about suspensions but they did not do so on this occasion.
I have now been through the process of receiving several items from the parking office, who now want £180 from me and all this has been sent to me at the wrong address, a completely different door in the same house. The letters have sometimes taken 10 days to reach me.
Finally, I note that the ticket states “contravention believed to have been committed” and demands money.
This is deemed illegal by The Bill of Rights 1689, an act not repealed by The Road Traffic Act 1991. This PCN is therefore an infringement of my human rights to be found guilty before paying a fine, as well as being an administrative injustice.
C Mason
Ellerdale Road, NW3
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