Original CPZ Results - would they be different now? Shall we re-survey?

[Beckenham Town Residents]

I'm not sure any residents ever saw the final published results - so I got hold of them and here they all are. Knowing what we know now, with new Pay & Display, permit fees per car, only 60 visitor permits allowed annually, costs to park and still no idea of final parking restriction times or freedom to park across own crossovers, plus still un-answered questions, because of lack of initial basic information would the results be the same? If anyone would like to help me re-survey the roads that have gone on to be part of the CPZ in 1, 2, 3 zones please let me know.

CPZ VOTES: FINAL TALLY (at 24 Sep 2008)
Analysis by RegAdams, 25 Sep 08

Total Votes -- For 377, Against 374
SubTotal: ClockHouse – For 310, Against 347
Acacia - For 5, Against 9
Beckenham* - For 12 Against 26
Belmont - For 10, Against 40
Blandford Road - For 28, Against 12
Blandford Avenue – For 4, Against 20
Cedars – For 28, Against 8
Churchfields* - For 9, Against 14
ClockHouse* - For 60, Against 17
Croydon* - For 8, Against 25
Durban – For 26, Against 28
Elm – For 15, Against 8
Gowland – For 3, Against 13
Hampden Avenue – For 4, Against 29
Hampden Road – For 4, Against 31
Hayne – For 6, Against 7
Kendall Road & Avenue – For 13, Against 25
Queens – For 36, Against 17
Sidney – For 28, Against 5
Westfield – For 6, Against 8
YewTree – For 5, Against 5

SubTotal: Penge & Cator – For 67, Against 27
Chaffinch – For 32, Against 8
Rowden – For 21, Against 6
ThayersFarm – For 14, Against 13

Notes:
1) Votes include only For or Against. Excludes Don'tKnow/NoAnswer.
2) Votes include a few Business votes (11 Beckenham Rd, 5 Croydon Rd, 5 ThayersFarm,
plus a few elsewhere).
3) * Part road only
ClockHouse Road to Hampden Road junction, odds 3-89 & evens 2-78
Blandford Road, odds 1-83 & evens 2-84
Beckenham Road to Churchfields Road junction, odds 1-175
Croydon Road to Cromwell Road junction, evens 208-432

[Paul Miller]

I don't think that there is much point in resurveying at this stage - the council will ignore it.

What you have to do is play by their rules.

1) Complain to the council that the process of the consultation was flawed and thus needs to be annulled. Complaints procedures are at http://www.bromley.gov.uk/council/customer+service/complaints_comme...

2) This will go to the traffic department who will reject it (it is Colin Smith I suspect who will review the complaint)

3) Complain again and it goes to the next level, who will reject it

4) Complain again and it goes to the Chief Executive of the Council who will reject it

5) Complain again and it goes to the Local Government Ombudsman who we have a fighting chance of getting a ruling against the council.

It will need many more than one person to go through the complaints procedure (the scheme is affecting many households and businesses) but it is the only way of getting the outcome of the consultation overturned.

You will need to complain that it was procedurally flawed (rather than you just don't like the result) and some arguments that could be put forward, in my view, are that the initial consultation document did not state how the process was to be conducted and what the decision making process was. I think that if people had been made aware that a simple majority of those that voted in a street would be enough to trigger the CPZ then either more people would have voted or some of the people who did vote may have voted in the other direction. A second point might be that things such as the limit to visitor permits, the pay and display options and the possibility of not being able to park across your dropdown (all of which were known quantities to the council before the consultation) should have been expressed in the document.

Only if a number of people put in complanits will the ombudsman take any notice so it needs a bit of effort from those people who are opposed to the system to get it through. It will only be 4 forms to fill out (3 of which will be identical) so it should not be too arduous.

Any takers?

One point to say though, is that whilst the complaints procedure is underway the council is under no obligation to stop what they are doing so by the time it gets to the ombudsman, and they rule against the council, the council may well reply that the system is now so far underway (or even it has been implemented) that they cannot remove it. At this stage, you have to go through the system again, although you might have a more direct route through to the ombudsman.

How many people are feeling strongly enough to go through this then? Are people prepared to reply to this with suitable arguments to include in the complaint?

Paul

[Jon Clarke]

At least 10 households at this end of our road would engage the complaints procedure, but there were 140+ against the CPZ at the recent Zone 1 public meeting, and who knows what Zone 2 & 3 now have.

I'd also say an email or letter to the local MP Jacqui Lait would be worth it too.

[e-mail]

Mrs Jacqui Lait MP
House of Commons
London
SW1A 0AA

[Gill Ablitt]

Was there a breakdown in Queens Road? I did request in my response that the two halves of the road should be taken separately, as houses at the top end (2-34) mainly have drives, whereas the other end doesn't, so to have us all lumped together is probably not a fair reflection of what people actually said.

My offer to help with door-to-door survey will probably be too late because I couldn't do it till the summer holidays.

What scope is there for local democracy, i.e. a peaceful protest by residents when the paint-line guys want to move in, by blocking the road?

[Reg Adams]

Gill, I don't know who you asked previously, but I'm happy to provide the breakdown of answers given in the Aug/Sep 2008 official survey to the crunch-question: "Do you think controlled parking is needed?" Yes = For; No = Against. Also shown below are splits for the ClockHouse Road and Cedars Road results. In all cases, the results are similar on both sides of the "dividing line." So, in fact, one can't conclude that the north (or east Cedars) voted heavily one way, while the south (or west Cedars) voted heavily the other way. Hope this helps. REG

Queens Road (Total): For 36, Against 17
Queens Road (North of Cedars): For 18, Against 6
Queens Road (South of Cedars): For 18, Against 11

Cedars Road (Total): For 28, Against 8
Cedars Road (East of Hayne Road): For 12, Against 3
Cedars Road (West of Hayne Road): For 16, Against 5

ClockHouse Road (Total): For 60, Against 17
ClockHouse Road (North of Queens): For 39, Against 10
ClockHouse Road (South of Queens): For 21, Against 7

Gill Ablitt said:

Was there a breakdown in Queens Road? I did request in my response that the two halves of the road should be taken separately, as houses at the top end (2-34) mainly have drives, whereas the other end doesn't, so to have us all lumped together is probably not a fair reflection of what people actually said.

My offer to help with door-to-door survey will probably be too late because I couldn't do it till the summer holidays.

What scope is there for local democracy, i.e. a peaceful protest by residents when the paint-line guys want to move in, by blocking the road?

[Jon Clarke]

Should that not be the 'informal' official survey? The council gave no indication at the time that the survey would result in the introduction of a CPZ scheme if the 'Fors' were larger than the 'Againsts' and that residents were participating in manner that would create something lawful. Many facts to hand to the council were not shared with residents at that time and what is clear from the previous public meeting many who had expressed an interest in the vote as a 'For' being told about how it would work and impact on them would now prefer the status quo and rescind their 'vote'. The council should re-poll setting out the true and full facts or better still ask residents to contribute to a working party on how best to tackle the problem of parking instead of just offering a CPZ and nothing else. Less politics, more residents expert knowledge, ideas and common sense is called for.

[Charles Berbeck]

1) Proposals for double yellow-lines and pay-and-display sections of road. (As distinct from individual parking-meters). These proposals are part of the wide-ranging public consultation exercise on the Controlled Parking Zone for roads around ClockHouse Station. The outcome will be guided by analysis of all the residents' questionnaire-responses. I understand that there have been 46 responses from Queens Road residents, 51 from ClockHouse Road residents and 26 from Cedars Road residents. Mr Paul Nevard is the Traffic Engineer in charge of this project. As you will know from the circulars distributed, ClockHouse Councillors have convened a Public Meeting to present information and to discuss the CPZ issues: Balgowan School, 24 June, starting at 19:30. From Reg Adams
Councillor - Clock House Ward

Please go and have your say

[Mark Edwards]

Although I am not in the proposed CPZ, I am very annoyed that not even a courtesy letter was sent to those in roads like mine. Forster Road, low house numbers, where we have limited drive way parking or street parking. We will suffer from displacement parking a lot. I have written my concerns over the whole process to Reg Adams Lib Dem councillor for Clock House ward who was present at the meeting at Balgowen School. I would like to know if any official complaint from someone whom the Council chooses not to include in the survey would count?

[Paul Sanderson,]

While I'm now broadly in favour of the CPZ - though I wasn't before - we all know that however far out the CPZ extends, there will be displacement parking just outside it's perimeter. Perhaps it's worth saying that there's nothing to stop residents in the displacement areas from applying for their own CPZs, though obviously that just moves the displacement problem further out. The displacement problem might be large or might turn out to have little impact. It's not possible to calculate in advance what the 'displacement effect' will be since no one knows how many commuter's vehicles will be displaced – and we don't know for two very obvious reasons.

The first is that no one knows which of the cars parked during the day in the vicinity of Clock House station and the Capita building are commuters' cars or residents' cars. I recognise some of the cars belonging to some of my near-neighbours - or think I do, but I might be wrong - but couldn't possibly make even a rough guess at a percentage split for residents vs commuters. Obviously a count of vehicles parked at mid-day during the week and then a count of those parked at midnight the same day would go some way to giving an indication – though it would only be an indication, without being completely accurate.

The second reason is that even if it were possible to accurately identify commuter vehicles, not all of them would become displacement parkers, for who is to say which of the owners would choose to park free outside the CPZ and which of them would say, "Two quid a day to park near the station? Yep, that's fine with me." What might help is if all the lengths of roadside which don't front a residence remained free of any parking restrictions or charges, exactly as they are at the moment (much of the north side of Cedars Road is a good example, and parts of Queens Road where it meets Clock House Road). And should The Studio accidentally burn down – I've no idea how that could possibly happen – then there's another 50 parking space available for visitors.

As an aside, the suggested two-quid-a-day rate for commuter parking leads me to think that if those of us with off-road parking buy a resident's permit for 35 quid and park in the road, then by charging a commuter 1 quid per day we not only get our permit paid for but make a tidy profit too. I've just realised why I've changed my mind about the CPZ...

On a more serious note I think we need to pay some close attention to Mark Edwards' revelation (this website, Mark Edwards's Discussions, 25 June) that four years ago the developers of the then-forthcoming Beckenham Beacon paid 30,000 quid into the Council's coffers for the implementation of a CPZ. Presumably the Council, well aware of the impact the Beacon would have on local parking and knowing it would have to do something about it, extracted a levy from the developers before Beacon work was allowed to go ahead. Lo and behold, the Beckenham Beacon was completed recently... and a CPZ appears. That said, 'our' CPZ obviously isn't around the Beckenham Beacon... but maybe that's yet to come!

[Jon Clarke]

As the council requires cars with permits to be assigned to residents house addresses, and they have access to both electoral role and the DVLA it wouldn't be too difficult to do a daily survey for a week to see which cars in situ were residents or not.

Subtract from that number the possible Pay & Display spots and that would give you a starting point of how many cars would be displaced.

There was an earlier comment on the other thread that as the distance increased from the Spa, Beacon, Station & Capita then those non-residents parking would decrease as the walk got too much for them. So probably a sliding percentage scale added to the calculation and that would give you some idea on what the CPZ would do to outside the scheme roads. Not rocket science really is it.

On the point of those with off-street parking buying a permit and then renting their drives and cross overs to non-residents that's totally legal and there are websites that sort out the advertising and booking of these spaces.

The £30,000 Beacon payment non-disclosure at the Public Meeting was tantamount to being lied to. The question posed to Cllr Smith by a resident that evening was whether or not the CPZ was only funded by the resident permits and nothing else. He confirmed that it was only the permits. 160 people witnessed this. Trust in politicians is at an all time low. When will they learn to give the people the truth.

I think they need to properly access the situation afresh, run proper traffic management surveys on possible displacement, engage in dialogue with residents from all roads in and out of any proposed scheme and then work out the best solution from that. Any vote should be known to be a vote, if needed. It must also be available to all residents both by leaflet, electronically and perhaps publicly (library), listing all the fine detail, rules and be open for further comment. So I call upon the council to stop wasting money on what they are doing now and engage the community with openess and honesty.

[Paul Sanderson,]

It may be that the 30,000 quid 'donation' towards a CPZ is indeed meant only for a zone radiating out from the Beckenham Beacon and is nothing to do with 'our' Clock House CPZ. If that is the case, then Cllr Smith's answer is completely truthful.

That would also explain why 'our' CPZ stops short of the Beckenham Beacon area when it would seem reasonable for it to extend all the way there, given that they're likely to need one there. By treating that as a separate area (if only because residents there may well be peeved at being asked to have a CPZ based on Clock House station) the need for and acceptance of a CPZ in that area would be based on what the local difficulty actually is, which seems to me to be The Right Thing To Do if you're going to do it.

Interestingly, if residents close to the Beckenham Beacon voted not to have a CPZ, would the Council feel obliged to hand back the 30,000 quid to the developers? Unlikely, I would have thought.

Another thought: when CPZs eventually start bumping into each other, like colliding galaxies, will the frenzy of the residents' in the shrinking no-restrictions areas generate enough heat and light to solve our energy needs for the foreseeable future?

[Paul Sanderson,]

Parking schadenfreude: For the amusement of those just outside the CPZ who justifiably fear displacement parking, here's a thought to cheer you up.

It occurred to me the other night that when all-day commuter parking is stopped by the introduction of residents' parking bays monitored by a traffic warden from mid-day to 2pm, it won't take long for those who use The Spa or library during the day to spot that there is loads of free parking suddenly available in Queens Road and Elm Road (and to a certain extent Cedars Road) just so long as they don't visit those facilities during the mid-day to 2pm period - which is lunchtime for most people anyway.

So while Queens Road, Elm Road and Cedars Road residents may throw their caps in the air at an initial success, I've a feeling that before long they'll be dismayed to discover that parking in their roads seems to be just as difficult during the day as it was before. The car park at The Spa will be completely empty of course.

For Queens Road, Elm Road and Cedars Road residents the answer is all-day residents-only parking... but that will cost the residents twice as much for their permits.