Parking reforms
While popular culture suggests parking controls are unfair, inflexible and simply there to raise money for local councils, the truth is that without them traffic would grind to a halt, residents would be unable to park anywhere near their homes and the situation would swiftly descend into anarchy.
The Council has operated parking controls that have worked well for a number of years, however, in light of increased traffic and environment concerns a number of changes are proposed. Read below for details:
The Council is set to introduce parking charges that will see residents pay for their permits based on vehicle emissions. This decision is a direct response from the Council to the growing issue of climate change.
The Council believes that the sliding scale of charges proposed will give residents an incentive to consider less polluting vehicles. Also being considered is a supplementary charge for second permit holders in a household. The Council has already consulted on this scheme with its Residents’ Panel and will be keeping residents informed of future developments.
In April 2005, the Council embarked on a programme of consultations to establish residents’ views on extending the hours of parking controls. As a result, controls were extended in the Knightsbridge, South Kensington and Kensington High Street areas.
Further consultations were carried out in all of the roads to the south of Kensington High Street but the results showed that local opinion was equally divided about the extension of parking controls to include Saturday afternoons and the introduction of parking controls in resident bays on Sundays.
In light of this, the Council re-consulted residents in areas where there appeared to be support and is now considering these consultation results to see if residents want longer hours of parking controls. More news will follow.
Clamping and lifting policy
When the Council took over parking responsibility in 1994 it also adopted the powers to both clamp, and remove vehicles.
There is now a body of opinion that suggests that clamping is no longer the ‘visual deterrent’ it used to be and therefore has little material effect on driver behaviour.
The Council has used its powers to remove vehicles parked illegally particularly on footways, pay and display bays, resident parking bays, suspensions and on yellow lines.
However, many residents park overnight in pay and display bays and on yellow lines outside the hours of parking control. They do so not out of choice but because of the serious lack of available resident parking bays.
Many of the vehicles clamped or removed are therefore residents who overstay and remain parked once the parking controls resume the next day.
The current regime is no longer considered by the public to be either fair or proportionate, and the Council is therefore reviewing clamping and lifting policy and, in light of the extension of the Congestion Charge Zone, the possibility of releasing unused pay and display bays for resident parking.
Suspensions
While the Council’s policy on suspensions has been subject to annual review, the charges have remained the same since 1998. This is largely because this is seen as a service to residents carrying out domestic removals and building work.
A parking suspension within the Royal Borough currently costs £20 per bay per day, reducing accordingly if the discount applies.
Many of these suspensions take place in resident parking bays and unneeded suspensions effectively stop these bays being released for parking, unnecessarily restricting an already scarce resource.
The Council is therefore conducting a review of the policy on suspensions with a view to addressing this anomaly and encouraging the early closure or cancellation of suspensions so the bays can be released for parking.
Motorcycle parking
The Council has recently carried out a review of the motorcycle parking policy that will benefit both motorcyclists and residents.
This will lead to the introduction of a new system that will increase the total number of motorcycle parking spaces from approximately 1,600 to 2,600, so that every bike owner will have access to a secure parking bay within a few minutes walk of their home.
At present, visitor and resident motorcyclists can park free of charge in any motorcycle bay in the borough. In addition, residents can purchase a motorcycle permit for £18 per annum that allows them to park in resident (car) bays.
However, motorcycles parked randomly in resident bays are vulnerable to being knocked over by other vehicles and it is impossible to provide secure locking facilities.
The new system will introduce dedicated resident permit-only parking bays for motorcycles, while still allowing visitors to park free of charge. This will be achieved by converting a proportion of the existing free bays to permit-only and introducing additional bays as necessary.
To help offset the cost of implementation it is proposed to increase the cost of a motorcycle permit to £50 (discounted to £35 for those holding a recognized advanced rider certificate).
To find out more email rbkcdirect@rbkc.gov.uk.
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