East Dulwich parking survey just hit.

[????]

I am a master in survey design who will willingly take on any in future for a small fortune to blow on the horses

[SteveT]

A survey on the positive values of gambling on society.

I'll bet you cant do it under a tenner, quids;-)

[karter]

Going back to the survey, how can there be a practical solution in penalising estate sgents cars from parking especially the ones that are not all graffited up as they are now.

I can't see one, can anyone else?

[lozzyloz]

Why just penalise the estate agents? They are partly responsible for marketing ED and attracting those with disposable incomes that have contributed to the gentrification that we mostly enjoy. If you're going to penalise anyone then perhaps it should be:

a) households with more than 2 cars

b) multi storey addresses with cars in excess of the number of dwellings

c) commuters who don't live in the borough of Southwark

d) residents who convert their front gardens to water repellent parking bays

e) people who park smack in the middle of a space that could accommodate two cars

f) any non commercial vehicle with a wheelbase longer than a Mondeo estate

[KalamityKel]

Excuse my ignorance but...

d) residents who convert their front gardens to water repellent parking bays

How will that ease parking? take the bay away and the space in the front garden and you still have a car using the space. It makes no difference at all.

[lozzyloz]

But when the car is in use the space in front of the house becomes free for another car unlike someone's front garden which you wouldn't want to block.

[KalamityKel]

Simple solution then... park in the driveway ;-) yes yes I no not a particularly helpful suggestion. Are there really that many bays in the ED area then?

[lozzyloz]

Perhaps that could be a little revenue earner. ?5 a day for commuters? Have a look at the side streets of LL mostly ending in Grove.

[KalamityKel]

I know Ashbourne is a troublesome road (sorry Grove). Altho, now correct me if I'm wrong, it doesn't seem to be a particularly busy road compared to others...?

[owen.g]

I used to live in Balham up until two years ago. They introduced a CPZ there, four years before I left.

It was a nightmare, and Balham had a commuter parking problem because of the tube and mainline stations which could have been said to justify it.

I can't tell you how happy I am to live in such a lovely area with no CPZ. It would be a tragedy if it ever happened here.

CPZs are not the solution to anything.

[Bobby P]

So very true, Owen. A common experience, unfortunately.

CPZ's are merely a scam aimed at gullible, naive residents who see them as parking panaceas. Unfortunately, as there are many such folk in London, CPZ's have been able to take a foothold to such an extent that now they are thought of as the norm, and an inevitability in areas that have so far escaped.

Despite most Councils driving them through (as has been discussed in this thread) for money-raising reasons, there is no logical reason to accept CPZ introductions as a fait accompli, and their efficacy needs to be challenged: the first step of which is strong resistance from the community, and a perhaps a degree of education for those inclined to believe that an extra little annual tax is going to make their parking problems disappear. On the contrary, post-CPZ, their parking hassles will only increase, alongside the expense. The words "turkeys", "voting" and "Christmas" are not far from mind.

[Huguenot]

Many people keep making a similar assertion - that this is a money raising scam by councils.

Nobody yet has provided any data supporting this claim, any examples out there?

[kford]

Bobby P and Owen G are spot-on.

From my time in a CPZ, we received PCNs...:

...in the five minutes we were inside scratching the dates off the day pass (?15/book valid only for two years) to place on a relative's car

...because we left one wheel over the white line at the end of the CPZ (even though the other three wheels were in).

...and were clamped and removed because the permit disc fell from the screen while we were away on hols in hot summer of 2003 (in the plastic holder provided by Lambeth), causing the permit number (but not the expiry date) to be slightly obscured. ?280 to get the car back.

...on a buider's van in the time it took for him to carry his stuff to our door and before we could give him his vistor's pass.

None were appealed successfully, despite witness statements and photos.

This was not careless or inconsiderate parking, this was a council making money hand over fist. It's going on all over London.

Be careful what you wish for.

[Bobby P]

Not true, Huguenot.

Sidue posted on Page 7 of this thread quoting from the TFL guidelines. Clearly, TFL subsidise Council's introductions of CPZ's, because (as they say in their documentation) once installed CPZ's turn a profit, and suggest that the profits can then be used to generate more CPZ's (spreading like a cancer!).

I am sure that a dedicated journalist could dig up plenty of figures showing how this works - I imagine none on this forum has that time or expertise, unfortunately. I had plenty in run-ins with wardens and towing fines wrongly levied up in Camden, but most of the tickets were simply fraudulently issued, so I managed to appeal successfully - though only after endless time and effort, and of course being out of pocket for months.

However, with all those ?250 towing fines levied on innocent local residents for dubious infractions, it would be very hard for a Council NOT to turn a tidy profit on the basic costs of painting a few white lines and paying low wages (and commission on each ticket) to a few eager traffic wardens.

[Huguenot]

Well, that's what I mean Bobby - nobody seems to be digging anything up. You'd have thought that with the headlines that could ensue, that an enterprising young journo would be pursuing this one quite actively?

I'm just thinking that it would be better to have any debate with info to hand.

If you're right that most of the tickets are fraudulent, then do you have any data that supports that? That's quite a big thing for us to consider?

I can see that the schemes are supposed to be self-funding, but does anyone have any data that supports their ability to meet that objective? Councils and TFL make such a cock-up of running most transport schemes without losing money I find it difficult to believe that they're likely to be experts at this one? We should be just as interested if they lose money as if they earn it.

I can see traders are worried that it might affect shopping activity, but... no data.

And I can also see that residents of heavily affected streets should have the rights to petition their councils to protect their living environment so long as this doesn't have undue effects on their neighbouring streets.

I've got a pretty open mind, I just wish someone could provide us with an example of a CPZ in action.

[Bobby P]

Well, not sure why more journalists don't investigate such things. I think there's a great complacency and that once these things are introduced, we just come to accept them, even though in fact the quality of our life has been diminished by them. So we moan, but never really do anything to challenge the underlying assumptions. That's partly a British reaction (we quietly mutter to ourselves in restaurants, and post about them on here, but are too "polite" to make much more than a meek token fuss at the actual scene of bad service/food etc). But frankly there are so many pernicious, quality-of-life reducing things done to Londoners by both central and local government (many of which are brought up on thie forum), rarely to I ever see an effective movement to get any of them reversed.

BTW, Huguenot, I didn't mean that most of the parking tickets issued in my CPZ were fraudulent, I said that most of the issued to me were fraudulent (as I was able to successfully challenge them). I would, however, imagine that if I received 10 tickets while living there and 8 were issued incorrectly (the other 2 being due to either my forgetfulness or simply not seeing a suspension sign that had been erected overnight), then other people in the road could report similar numbers.

Given each ticket is a major headache to get lifted, whether incorrectly issued or not, you can see how the frustration factor, the fear factor (will my car parked down the road suddenly be towed when a bay is suspended unexpectedly? who is going to look out for my vehicle while I'm away on holiday? where can by aged parents park, now that I have no more day passes allowed?) as well as the actual fine factor, all contribute to making living under a CPZ a very unpleasant experience indeed.

[kford]

I've also received so-called 'ghost tickets': PCNs issued but not placed on the vehicle. The parking attendant (PA) spots you, say, dropping someone off on a single yellow (allowed, for up to 20 mins depending on the borough) then issues a ticket to your car, without placing it on the vehicle. PA then downloads their handheld machine's data back at base and the PCN enters the system, with a ?100 final demand arriving on your doormat a month later. Got off because I challenged it under the 'Offence didn't take place' rule and demanded photographic evidence. Let off because of a 'technicality' without apology. many friends have suffered this and just paid up in fear of not getting a successful appeal.

[tomsav]

If it's any help we just got the Lib Dem parking survey delivered today up at the top of Landcroft Road.

And, IMHO, anyone voting yes for it is an idiot - as BobbyP says, CPZs are cash cows that bring hassle and misery to locals and make it almost impossible at times for visitors to pop round.

Hello, by the way. Nice forum.

[tiddles]

I think Kfords post is very telling - and the reason we really need to avoid these. They are money making and in most cases just not necessary, however I do appreciate that there are certain streets with real parking problems and pain for residents. Twice CPZs were propposed within the bellenden area, and twice each street affected submitted their petitions against. There was no way the council could enforce these with the weight of evidence against, however this was very time consuming for all involved. There were, however streets where they were in favour however the council would not enforce them for such small areas. Herne hill seems to have the pay parking for 2 hours in the day - which seems to keep their roads clearer - could something like that be looked at? - tho I am sure there are drawbacks - somewhere. Once a CPZ is in place, the streets will be crawling with traffic wardens looking to meet their quotas - come hell or high water.

[Wino]

You mustn't call them traffic wardens anymore... Their new funky title is Civil Enforcement Officer. I do believe that fascist, scumbag, "little Hitler", inhuman, troll, satan's little helper and demon spawn are all still applicable terms according to the highway code, though I can't remember what page exactly......

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23469076-details/I%27m+not+a+traffic+warden+...+call+me+a+civil+enforcement+officer/article.do

[Mark]

Just to let you know I'll be publishing the results of the CPZ survey we did on the forum sometime this week.

[Bobby P]

Just a comment on the "2 hours a day" idea that jan t mentions...it does indeed have its drawbacks. By and large the same ones as a whole day CPZ. You have the same problems: of visitor parking (if your visitors are staying more than a few hours, for instance in my case my aged parents coming to stay...), of tickets issued over-zealously for sudden bay suspensions, tickets for other minor "infringements" through forgetfulness, or often through no fault of the resident. And of course, you still have to pay for your permits/visitor permits, and pay in grief and time for challenging wrongly or dubiously issued tickets.

They do indeed have this 2 hr system in areas of Herne Hill, where friends of mine live, and on their road, the wardens scoot around on motorbikes looking for potential cars to ticket, to such an extent that my friends invariably have to pay delivery guys the cost of the parking fine issued in the two minutes they walk up to the door to deliver a parcel. (I've also been caught and fined in the same way - having to park a long way from my friends' door while I delivered something to them, because - guess what - the CPZ hasn't really made any difference to the one thing it was supposed to: the number of cars parked up!).