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Hi again Lynn,Didn't study the map closely enough to spot the fact that Zone V was extended in several stages.I won't try to defend the permit price increase, but when my road first became part of a CPZ the permit price was around £50 and it stayed like that for a couple of years, before the massive hike to £90. I don't think it's going up again this year, but I suppose there ARE local elections in the offing!The point I was trying to make about abuse of visitors permits, is that a permit could be quite a desirable thing if it allows you to park close to a tube station from where you can carry on with your commute into town. I don't know how much parking in a car park would cost for the day, but I'd hazard a guess that plenty of people would be prepared to pay someone £5 for a permit that allows them to park for the day. I can think of a solution - namely that you have a visitors permit voucher that allows you to select when you want to park, either in the morning or the afternoon, and that you're NOT allowed to display the two simultaneously ( to prevent someone doing just that and going away for the whole day). I do realise that by the sounds of it your grandmother lives somewhere that doesn't have facilities that 'attract' parking, so this type of abuse is unlikely to take place there.I have to admit that if the council opposes some form of scheme allowing visitors to residents to park for a nominal rate ( say £1 per permit) then it is putting revenue raising ahead of residents' concerns.I can appreciate your grandmother's situation a lot more - hope that enough pressure gets brought to bear to help those people whose visitors have been 'priced out'.

Andrew Jones ● 7097d

Hi Andrew"From what you say it does look like having a CPZ imposed is going to affect your Grandmother's visitors, but where does she live ( I'm only asking because I had a quick look at the map of CPZs in LBHF and couldn't find any bits of the borough that aren't already in a zone)."My grandmother lives in the zone V extention."Is there a parking problem there currently or not? If there is, then putting in a CPZ would surely make parking easier for residents, and would make parking easier for visitors ( since there would be fewer of them as you won't have any 'visitors' that are taking advantage of the free parking)"There weren't any parking problems until all other surrounding roads were CPZ'd - the ripple effect I was talking about in my previous post.  (Residents in her road continued to vote against CPZ).  But even now, I manage to get a space when I visit her during the week."For what it's worth, I think £90 is a bit on the high side to pay for parking permits, and I think that CPZs are 50-60% about generating revenue, and 40-50% about prioritising parking for residents."£90 is disgusting, especially as it was £50 the previous year.  I still disagree with you about council motives behind CPZ, so we will have to differ on that one - I still believe it is yet another unfair 'tax' on motorists."I think your comparison about shopping car parks and paying much more for parking in residential roads needs to be considered along with the fact that the shopping car parks were specifically built to accomodate shoppers cars, while the residential roads weren't."As I have stated, there are no facilities to attract parking in my grandmother's road.  The houses were built in the 1920's & I agree few people had cars then, so the roads were originally built for horses & carts (although by the 1920's many houses were being built with garages).  However, things have evolved & all (or most!) drivers pay road tax to maintain roads.  It doesn't cost the council anything for us to park our cars in the road, but it is a great way for them to make money out of us."To be honest, I think the fairest situation would be if residents were allowed to buy visitors tickets that they could give to their visitors to use, while keeping Pay and Display for other people that park there, all the time ensuring that there's no abuse of the Visitors tickets. This last thing is the thing I think would be tricky!"If, as the council would like us to believe, the whole point of the CPZ is to control parking because residents are worried about parking space, then surely it wouldn't be in residents interests to abuse visitors tickets?  (i.e. if they really have a problem parking then it would only be making it worse for them?)  Interesting that the council think residents want CPZ so much but are likely to abuse the system!  Speaks volumes!

Lynn Clark ● 7104d

I disagree with you Andrew, I believe it's all about generating revenue & little else.When do most people use their cars?  To go to work (before 9am & get home after 5pm)?  To go out at the weekend?  (These are the times when parking is to be unrestricted in my grandmother's road).  In a purely residential street (no business premises, no transport, no shops), how does that help residential parking?My friend has had CPZ for about 3 years now.  He said that it cost £50 in the first year & then the LBHF put it up to £90 in the second!  (Once it's in presumably the council have you by the short & curlies & make the charges up as they go along!).If paying the £90 per annum (is it still £90?) guaranteed a space then that might be some (little) comfort to residents, but it doesn't.  A family friend frequently gets parking tickets because although he pays for his parking permit he cannot get a space (although he didn't have a problem before CPZ apparently - I think LBHF put more yellow lines in at the same time?).  He went to court over the last ticket, arguing that he pays his permit but cannot park - he lost his case.  So LBHF make even more money by being able to fine people on top of the revenue from permits & pay & display.The Chiswick forum has threads about problems they have with their CPZ.From what I've witnessed, once CPZ has been implemented, it seems to create a huge problem in surrounding roads, which in turn then have CPZ, which pushes the problem out further...etc - like throwing a stone into a puddle; the ripple effect spreading outwards.And £1.60 per hour to park as a visitor?  You don't have to pay anywhere near that to park to go shopping!  I park in the King St shopping centre every week & it costs me £2.00 for 3 hours!Do you still think the prime objective has nothing to do with making money?              ****************************With respect to my Grandmother & how this will affect her:My grandmother's road is a quiet, residential road & isn't near to any public transport, shops or businesses.My grandmother is reasonably fit & healthy, but my mother is effectively my grandmother's 'carer' (taking her shopping, to the doctor, that sort of thing).  Sometimes my mother will stay the night at my grandmothers.  My grandmother is in her 80's & my mother is a pensioner too.  She has contacted the council several times to see if she can get some sort of parking permit, but they say no.  Both my mother & grandmother are extremely worried about how they will cope.My uncle (my grandmother's son) visits her once a week.  He is a pensioner too.  I don't know what he will do now.I visit my grandmother about once a week with my youngest child.  I will not be doing so now.None of us lives within walking distance & public transport is impossible (& would defeat the object for my grandmother being taken shopping etc).I'm sure we are not the only family to have to face these problems & I don't want to appear to be droning on about it - I'm only sharing this to highlight the effect it is going to have on some peoples' lives.Every way I look at this all I can see are the £ signs for the council.

Lynn Clark ● 7106d

Lynn,In some CPZs, you can only park at certain times e.g. 1830..2000, IF you display a residents permit ( or display a council issued visitors permit alongside a pay and display ticket). This is denying the council income from the sale of pay and display tickets between 1830 and 2000( as there's no point in buying one, because it still won't entitle you to park there between 1830..2000 unless you've got a visitors permit available as well). I suppose they get revenue from Penalty Notices issued to those drivers that buy a Pay and Display ticket not realising that they can't park between 1830 and 2000, but it would be cynical to think that the council introduces these extra restrictions in the hope of raising extra revenue from parking fines - I'm sure the real reason is that they are trying to ensure that residents parking in the CPZ is protected.I agree that revenue generation is an important factor that the council considers when it thinks about CPZs, but I honestly think that residents concerns also figure in their calculations.Another thing is that if you don't allow non residents to park by means of a Pay and Display ticket, the council might say that they have to make up the money for policing the zone in some other way, perhaps by increasing the cost of the residents permit.What I'm getting at is that I don't think that CPZs are just there to generate money for the council. Also, I think that in two of the Zones in the southern half of the borough, they've recently reduced some experimental restrictions on parking after feedback from residents - again, if they were solely after money, I don't think they'd have done this.PS I know I might sound like an apologist for the Council, I'm not, have no relation to the labour party and have nothing to do with any concillors ( I think one of them shares a similar name to mine, but we're two different people!)

Andrew Jones ● 7107d