Evening Standard: Too Few Spaces, Too Many Permits - How Drivers Are Being Taken For A Ride
It's being called 'residents' parking rage', and to drivers living in London's busiest streets the frustration of finding a space can be enough to prompt a move to the country. David Rowan reports
AFTER paying up to £100 for the privilege of parking near their homes, increasing numbers of motorists are having to drive around in circles squeezed out by councils selling up to two permits for every available on-street parking place.
In Covent Garden, weary residents have even decreed it an official neighbourhood sport - the motorists' equivalent of musical chairs, with just one near-impossible aim: to find an empty, legal parking space.
As resident Amanda Rigby explained, 'the game has been enjoying increasingly heated popularity among young and old' - with around 400 permit-holders fighting a daily street battle to secure one of only about 220 parking bays.
Such double-ticketing among airlines would lead to refunds or compensation claims. But the practice is rife across London's parking authorities, according to an Evening Standard survey - and is set to grow as a projected increase in car ownership is matched by the rapid spread of controlled-parking zones.
The problem is not just affecting central London, squeezed as it is by the boom in residential development - meaning more homeowners applying for more permits. As our survey can reveal, the growing demand for residents' parking is forcing a number of London boroughs to oversell permits for the available number of parking bays - with demand fuelled even further by non-residents fraudulently obtaining passes.
This year, Kensington and Chelsea has sold 41,500 borough-wide permits for only 26,000 residents' spaces. The story is similar in Westminster, where residents have paid for a third more permits - 39,000 - than there are available parking bays. Even in leafy Merton, 13,000 permits have been issued to cover 6,000 legal parking places.
But it's in Camden - with 37,000 permits issued each year, to fill 22,500 bays - that residents have complained loudest about the mismatch between the availability of the £82 permits and the number of actual parking places.
That tension recently came to a head in the north of the borough, when those living in the Redington Road and Frognal areas lost a heated battle to join the main Hampstead parking zone. The council backed those living in the centre of the notoriously traffic-clogged village, rejecting the call to add to the 3,760 permit-holders already competing for just 2,400 official parking places.
Such numbers worry Dawn Somper, a local councillor who believes that Camden is already 'skating on thin ice' over its allocation of permits. 'It's not legal, I'm sure,' she told the Standard. 'It must be wrong to sell more permits than there are spaces to park, but it's happening all over London. I wonder why residents aren't attacking people in the town hall?'
She believes the council must simply stop selling permits. 'But they're not likely to do that, as they make a jolly good profit.'
By law, the money councils make from permit sales or fines is ring-fenced to be used for transport-related spending, such as concessionary fares or the enforcement of more parking zones. But that does not stop residents questioning their councils' ability to raise extra funds - whether £3.30 a year in Havering, or £95 in Islington - and guarantee nothing in return.
Along Hampstead's elegant Georgian terraces, the frustration is palpable as the four-by-fours race with the Porsches for the few mid-afternoon places.
Lesley Scorgie, aged 40, who lives in Church Row, said: 'If you pay to have a parking space close to where you live, you should have the right to park there. The situation is ridiculous - we'd be willing to pay more to get our own space, if Camden could police the system.'
Her husband, Russell Amerasekera, a 39-year-old television presenter, believes the problem is worsening. 'We'll sometimes drive round five times before we find a place,' he said. One solution, he believes, is for the council to deny permits to residents who already have private parking places.
Their neighbour Anne Cramphorn, a 45-year-old nursery-school assistant, has been ticketed after midnight for parking on a yellow line when no residents' bays were available. The key, she said, was to time her arrival carefully: 'If you return home after 8pm, when non-residents are allowed to park, and before 11pm, you just can't find a place.'
The pressures are greater, if anything, five miles south, in the West End.
Lez Hammans, a Covent Garden resident of 25 years, lives just off Endell Street, but cannot park anywhere near his home. 'It gets harder by the minute, but you learn to live with it,' he said. 'You don't use your car unless you know you can get back in. That means coming back at 1am or 2am, or parking on a meter and getting up at 5am to find a space. The airlines are being called to account over double-booking. Yet the council's doing the same over parking.'
Mr Hammans, a property manager in his fifties, dares not move his Fiat unless he is driving out of town for the weekend. He has twice faced legal action despite being correctly parked on a residents' bay with a correct permit: 'It cost me sleepless nights, and quite a bit of money proving I was right, and then Camden didn't even turn up at the tribunal.'
BUT what has really stuck in his craw, he said, is the Standard's revelation that congestion charging is to be accompanied by lane closures on main routes leading in from the west.
'It's Ken Livingstone's own form of deep-vein thrombosis,' he said. 'I was shocked. I hate it here now, and will be moving out of London when I can, what with this and the parking problems. If there were riots over the poll tax, I'll be amazed if people don't take up arms against this.'
The problem is set to get worse. There are now 3.1million households in London, but the Mayor's housing commission estimates that this could rise to 3.6 million within 15 years - not least because another 290,000 of us will be living alone. And that means more cars on the roads, even if off-street parking is a condition of many new planning approvals.
The Government's own 10-year transport plan, published last February, projects a startling rise in car ownership: whereas in 1996 there were 2.5 million cars in the capital, by 2011 it says there will be 3.3 million. Those cars will have to be parked somewhere.
Councils accept they will be unable to meet the new demand, yet they say they can merely respond to residents' wishes. 'We are obliged, if a resident can produce the necessary documents and proof of residency, to issue the requested permit,' a spokeswoman for Kensington and Chelsea said. 'We can't guarantee a space, no. But what's the alternative? To have a cut-off point and turn down the next applicant?'
The council points out that not every permit owner wants to park at the same time. Some permits are owned by those with a home elsewhere, or by those who have off-road parking.
There is also a growing problem of non-residents fraudulently obtaining permits. Kensington-and Chelsea accepts that forged permits are being used, and boroughs from Croydon to Richmond have received falsified documents such as tenancy agreements in applications for passes. The problem appears to be acute in parts of central London.
John Bos, co-ordinator of the Covent Garden Community Association, said: 'Our biggest problem is the large number of people who have obtained permits fraudulently, and Camden's inability to do anything about it. We estimate that 15 to 20 per cent of all permits are fraudulent.
'Go and follow some of the restaurant-owners arriving in residents' bays each morning.
If you're a resident, you don't get a look in.
Some claim they have a camp bed in the basement. Or you can draw up your own tenancy agreement and put yourself on the electoral register, but that doesn't mean you live there.
The lengths people go to are incredible.'
Most councils are now looking to extend their current controlled-parking zones or to create new ones. The Mayor's planned £5-a-day congestion charge is accelerating the trend in outer London, where residents fear the growth in commuter parking around Tube stations. Barnet, for instance, now has 11 zones, but councillors were this week discussing a number of new additions.
But in inner London, too, councils admit drastic solutions may be needed to stem the demand. As Westminster council says: 'Since our population is expected to grow in the near future and all the indications are that car ownership levels will also continue to increase, it will be increasingly difficult for us to meet the demand from residents to be able to park a vehicle near their homes.'
And that is bound to enrage those who end up driving around in circles.
[TABLE]
Councils who cause you parking rage: and charge you for it
Camden
Issues 37,000 parking permits for approximately 22,500 parking spaces Cost of a residents' permit for a year: £82
Croydon
Issues 8,000 permits for approximately 7,900 parking spaces Cost: £28
Hackney
Issues approximately 10,000 permits for approximately 7,100 parking places Cost: £75
Hounslow
Issues 6,300 parking permits for 5,000 spaces Cost: up to £75
Islington
Issues about 7,300 parking permits for around 6,700 parking spaces Cost: £95
Kensington and Chelsea
Issues approximately 41,500 residents' parking permits for around 26,000 spaces Cost: £70
Merton
Issues approximately 13,000 parking permits for 6,000 spaces Cost: Up to £100
Richmond
Issues approximately 8,000 permits for approximately 6,447 residents' permit holder spaces (a further Richmond 4,142 shared-use spaces can be used by residents' permit holders) Cost up to £80
Sutton
Issues approximately 2,000 residents' permits for 1,830 spaces Cost: £25
Westminster
Issues about 39,000 parking permits for around 30,000 spaces Cost: up to £90
(Evening Standard, September 28 2001)
AFTER paying up to £100 for the privilege of parking near their homes, increasing numbers of motorists are having to drive around in circles squeezed out by councils selling up to two permits for every available on-street parking place.
In Covent Garden, weary residents have even decreed it an official neighbourhood sport - the motorists' equivalent of musical chairs, with just one near-impossible aim: to find an empty, legal parking space.
As resident Amanda Rigby explained, 'the game has been enjoying increasingly heated popularity among young and old' - with around 400 permit-holders fighting a daily street battle to secure one of only about 220 parking bays.
Such double-ticketing among airlines would lead to refunds or compensation claims. But the practice is rife across London's parking authorities, according to an Evening Standard survey - and is set to grow as a projected increase in car ownership is matched by the rapid spread of controlled-parking zones.
The problem is not just affecting central London, squeezed as it is by the boom in residential development - meaning more homeowners applying for more permits. As our survey can reveal, the growing demand for residents' parking is forcing a number of London boroughs to oversell permits for the available number of parking bays - with demand fuelled even further by non-residents fraudulently obtaining passes.
This year, Kensington and Chelsea has sold 41,500 borough-wide permits for only 26,000 residents' spaces. The story is similar in Westminster, where residents have paid for a third more permits - 39,000 - than there are available parking bays. Even in leafy Merton, 13,000 permits have been issued to cover 6,000 legal parking places.
But it's in Camden - with 37,000 permits issued each year, to fill 22,500 bays - that residents have complained loudest about the mismatch between the availability of the £82 permits and the number of actual parking places.
That tension recently came to a head in the north of the borough, when those living in the Redington Road and Frognal areas lost a heated battle to join the main Hampstead parking zone. The council backed those living in the centre of the notoriously traffic-clogged village, rejecting the call to add to the 3,760 permit-holders already competing for just 2,400 official parking places.
Such numbers worry Dawn Somper, a local councillor who believes that Camden is already 'skating on thin ice' over its allocation of permits. 'It's not legal, I'm sure,' she told the Standard. 'It must be wrong to sell more permits than there are spaces to park, but it's happening all over London. I wonder why residents aren't attacking people in the town hall?'
She believes the council must simply stop selling permits. 'But they're not likely to do that, as they make a jolly good profit.'
By law, the money councils make from permit sales or fines is ring-fenced to be used for transport-related spending, such as concessionary fares or the enforcement of more parking zones. But that does not stop residents questioning their councils' ability to raise extra funds - whether £3.30 a year in Havering, or £95 in Islington - and guarantee nothing in return.
Along Hampstead's elegant Georgian terraces, the frustration is palpable as the four-by-fours race with the Porsches for the few mid-afternoon places.
Lesley Scorgie, aged 40, who lives in Church Row, said: 'If you pay to have a parking space close to where you live, you should have the right to park there. The situation is ridiculous - we'd be willing to pay more to get our own space, if Camden could police the system.'
Her husband, Russell Amerasekera, a 39-year-old television presenter, believes the problem is worsening. 'We'll sometimes drive round five times before we find a place,' he said. One solution, he believes, is for the council to deny permits to residents who already have private parking places.
Their neighbour Anne Cramphorn, a 45-year-old nursery-school assistant, has been ticketed after midnight for parking on a yellow line when no residents' bays were available. The key, she said, was to time her arrival carefully: 'If you return home after 8pm, when non-residents are allowed to park, and before 11pm, you just can't find a place.'
The pressures are greater, if anything, five miles south, in the West End.
Lez Hammans, a Covent Garden resident of 25 years, lives just off Endell Street, but cannot park anywhere near his home. 'It gets harder by the minute, but you learn to live with it,' he said. 'You don't use your car unless you know you can get back in. That means coming back at 1am or 2am, or parking on a meter and getting up at 5am to find a space. The airlines are being called to account over double-booking. Yet the council's doing the same over parking.'
Mr Hammans, a property manager in his fifties, dares not move his Fiat unless he is driving out of town for the weekend. He has twice faced legal action despite being correctly parked on a residents' bay with a correct permit: 'It cost me sleepless nights, and quite a bit of money proving I was right, and then Camden didn't even turn up at the tribunal.'
BUT what has really stuck in his craw, he said, is the Standard's revelation that congestion charging is to be accompanied by lane closures on main routes leading in from the west.
'It's Ken Livingstone's own form of deep-vein thrombosis,' he said. 'I was shocked. I hate it here now, and will be moving out of London when I can, what with this and the parking problems. If there were riots over the poll tax, I'll be amazed if people don't take up arms against this.'
The problem is set to get worse. There are now 3.1million households in London, but the Mayor's housing commission estimates that this could rise to 3.6 million within 15 years - not least because another 290,000 of us will be living alone. And that means more cars on the roads, even if off-street parking is a condition of many new planning approvals.
The Government's own 10-year transport plan, published last February, projects a startling rise in car ownership: whereas in 1996 there were 2.5 million cars in the capital, by 2011 it says there will be 3.3 million. Those cars will have to be parked somewhere.
Councils accept they will be unable to meet the new demand, yet they say they can merely respond to residents' wishes. 'We are obliged, if a resident can produce the necessary documents and proof of residency, to issue the requested permit,' a spokeswoman for Kensington and Chelsea said. 'We can't guarantee a space, no. But what's the alternative? To have a cut-off point and turn down the next applicant?'
The council points out that not every permit owner wants to park at the same time. Some permits are owned by those with a home elsewhere, or by those who have off-road parking.
There is also a growing problem of non-residents fraudulently obtaining permits. Kensington-and Chelsea accepts that forged permits are being used, and boroughs from Croydon to Richmond have received falsified documents such as tenancy agreements in applications for passes. The problem appears to be acute in parts of central London.
John Bos, co-ordinator of the Covent Garden Community Association, said: 'Our biggest problem is the large number of people who have obtained permits fraudulently, and Camden's inability to do anything about it. We estimate that 15 to 20 per cent of all permits are fraudulent.
'Go and follow some of the restaurant-owners arriving in residents' bays each morning.
If you're a resident, you don't get a look in.
Some claim they have a camp bed in the basement. Or you can draw up your own tenancy agreement and put yourself on the electoral register, but that doesn't mean you live there.
The lengths people go to are incredible.'
Most councils are now looking to extend their current controlled-parking zones or to create new ones. The Mayor's planned £5-a-day congestion charge is accelerating the trend in outer London, where residents fear the growth in commuter parking around Tube stations. Barnet, for instance, now has 11 zones, but councillors were this week discussing a number of new additions.
But in inner London, too, councils admit drastic solutions may be needed to stem the demand. As Westminster council says: 'Since our population is expected to grow in the near future and all the indications are that car ownership levels will also continue to increase, it will be increasingly difficult for us to meet the demand from residents to be able to park a vehicle near their homes.'
And that is bound to enrage those who end up driving around in circles.
[TABLE]
Councils who cause you parking rage: and charge you for it
Camden
Issues 37,000 parking permits for approximately 22,500 parking spaces Cost of a residents' permit for a year: £82
Croydon
Issues 8,000 permits for approximately 7,900 parking spaces Cost: £28
Hackney
Issues approximately 10,000 permits for approximately 7,100 parking places Cost: £75
Hounslow
Issues 6,300 parking permits for 5,000 spaces Cost: up to £75
Islington
Issues about 7,300 parking permits for around 6,700 parking spaces Cost: £95
Kensington and Chelsea
Issues approximately 41,500 residents' parking permits for around 26,000 spaces Cost: £70
Merton
Issues approximately 13,000 parking permits for 6,000 spaces Cost: Up to £100
Richmond
Issues approximately 8,000 permits for approximately 6,447 residents' permit holder spaces (a further Richmond 4,142 shared-use spaces can be used by residents' permit holders) Cost up to £80
Sutton
Issues approximately 2,000 residents' permits for 1,830 spaces Cost: £25
Westminster
Issues about 39,000 parking permits for around 30,000 spaces Cost: up to £90
(Evening Standard, September 28 2001)
posted by David Rowan at Friday, September 28, 2001
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