CPZ: Outcome - Roads to be Included

[Reg Adams]

The headlines are that the following roads will be included in the CPZ: Blandford Road (1-83 & 2-84); Cedars Road; Chaffinch Road; ClockHouse Road (to the Hampden Road junction); Elm Road; Queens Road; Rowden Road; Sidney Road; and ThayersFarm Road.

The following roads will be excluded from the CPZ: Acacia Road, Beckenham Road, Belmont Road, Betts Close, Blandford Avenue, Churchfields Road, Croydon Road, Durban Road, Gowland Place, Hampden Avenue, Hampden Road, Hayne Road, Kendall Avenue, Kendall Road, Malory Close, Westfield Road and YewTree Road.

There were about 760 valid votes cast in response to Bromley Council's recent consultation survey on a Controlled Parking Zone in this area. Overall, that represents a turn-out in excess of 50%. Based on the votes, the territory for the CPZ to be introduced has been defined. Where the majority of residents in a particular road voted in favour of a CPZ, that road will be included within the designated CPZ. The converse applies in those roads where the majority of respondents voted against having a CPZ in their road. The scope of the CPZ scheme will be reviewed six months after its introduction. During the review, residents and businesses in roads within the designated CPZ will be invited to comment on the extent to which the CPZ has achieved the outcomes they anticipated. Also by the time the review takes place, residents and businesses will have had time to assess the possible knock-on effects from parking displaced from roads within the CPZ.

A letter is being circulated to all residents within the original consultation area, providing further details. The next stage will be formal approval of the CPZ scheme at a future PortfolioHolder's Meeting (probably 26 Nov 2008 or 15 Jan 2009). These Meetings, like most Council Meetings, are held at The Civic Centre and the public is warmly invited to attend.

Many thanks to everyone who voted. It's good to know that Democracy is alive and well here.

[Reg Adams]

Mark,
You criticised Cllr Colin Smith for not mentioning the fact that the Hospital authorities* agreed to inject up to £30,000 into any schemes designed by Bromley Council to help alleviate additional parking stress that might be caused by the expansion of Beckenham Beacon/Hospital. (*Their official title is the Bromley, Bexley & Greenwich Local Improvement Finance Trust, BBG-LIFT). And it's a fair point - I should have mentioned it too, when presenting my "brief history" slides on Wednesday. This kind of agreement – known as a Section 106 agreement – is quite common up and down the country, whereby a landowner or property developer makes a legally-binding contract or planning obligation as a condition of getting the Local Authority's planning approval. Obviously, all the other aspects of the property development have to be acceptable too, regardless of the Section 106 sweetener.

But, as I understand it, the Council could only tap into a significant chunk of that £30,000 funding if the roads around the hospital (Westfield, Hayne, Durban, etc.) were part of the proposed CPZ. And – apart from the eastern end of Cedars Road – those roads are not going to be part of the CPZ. The possible injection of up to £30,000 was agreed more than four years ago. That was the stimulus for the Council's CPZ survey in early 2005. You can read more about it on this website under the Latest News section and under the Forum heading: "Mar/Apl 2005 CPZ survey (Elm Road, etc.) – Not really such a shock horror story." The outcome was that a majority of residents in Faversham and Shaftesbury Roads voted in favour of having controlled parking, but the majority of residents on the ClockHouse side voted against. Some of the £30,000 will have been spent to meet the capital costs of setting-up the Faversham & Shaftesbury scheme. The Council effectively tried a second bite of the cherry when it decided to include in the Aug/Sep 2008 CPZ survey territory all the roads in the block bounded by Elm/Beckenham/Croydon/Acacia/Belmont/Hampden. Now, I'm not against the Council using some other organisation's money (in this case Hospital money) to finance a CPZ if that's what most residents want. But, I am implacably opposed to having a CPZ imposed by an edict from on high, with the political spin that it would be introduced "for the benefit of residents" - if the majority of residents really don't want it!

And sure, the promise of funding from some outside organisation is a strong driver for bringing in a scheme. A similar thing happened back in early 2003 when TFL funding was offered for introducing a one-way system for roads around Balgowan School under the so-called "Safer routes to School." After the implications were properly explained, local residents voted 2-1 against the idea and it was therefore dropped, even though the traffic engineers had by then already devoted quite a lot of time and effort to the design.

The Hospital money isn't the only pot of potential outside funding for a CPZ anyway. Jon Clarke's posting (17 June) mentioned contributions from property developers for the blocks of flats on Beckenham Road on either side of the Sidney Road junction. There might also be some funding available from Transport for London (TfL). The new CopersCope CPZ was the subject of a Council Officer's report ES09026 (a document in the public domain), which was considered at the PortfolioHolder's Meeting (29 Jan 2009). There is a lot of detail here about the estimated capital and running costs of the new CopersCope CPZ, including the fact that TfL will be contributing £20,000 towards the capital costs. Incidentally, para. 5.3 of this report states: "It should be noted that if the scheme is discontinued after the six-month review, the pay-and-display machines will either be used to replace existing older machines or will be used for new parking schemes." Got that? If the scheme is discontinued ... And to be fair to Cllr Colin Smith, he did mention at the Balgowan Public Meeting that the ClockHouse CPZ Scheme could be dismantled (in whole or in part) if that is the consensus view of local residents at the six-month review stage.

[Mark Edwards]

Thank you for making that a bit clearer, Mr Adams. The conditional nature of outside funding, exactly what is and isn't available and on what grounds etc. is exactly the sort of information that needs to be put in front of residents before they are asked to make decisions about changes at a local level affecting them. To not have the whole picture until now just opens my eyes even wider.

It seems to me that working in partnerships with TFL and other larger specialist bodies would solve a lot of the problems with consultation around these CPZ schemes. Data from all over the Greater London area collected by them must be applicable to planning and implementing schemes near Rail and Bus hubs in our area. It might also help cut the cost to Council Tax payers of schemes being considered, started, altered and potentially stopped, in what seems to me a very amateurish and Parochial way. I am sure that wider consultation beyond the proposed areas would result in good quality information being available in "survey letters" online and elsewhere. I find that the lack of any useful info. on Bromly.gov is a big problem. The information about context and the history of CPZ schemes is all there - but inside good heads such as yours - not available to enough of us!

[Jon Clarke]

Just wondering... now that the CPZ around Clock House near the Beckenham Spa means commuters will be pushed further away, those lovely spaces so many wanted during the day will now be taken up instead by all those Spa & Beacon customers after 12 Noon. I mean the spaces which are now going to be available outside our houses will be the free parking for those customers instead of them using the car-parks those named premises charge for... so when you come home expecting to park outside your abode you'll find a Spa user there instead... one should always be careful for what one wishes for...