Just received this through the door, as doubtless many of you will have. To say I'm surprised to read this would be somewhat of an understatement. Perhaps one or more of our elected councillors would like to come on here to explain how 'Traffic Management' have seen fit to overrule an official consultation of residents on the basis of undisclosed views on the 'level of support'?
Can they also let me know how this decision links with the Sustainable Transport Works Plan 2016/17 which states at paragraph 2.3 a commitment to '...manage the increasing demand for road space by managing parking capacity' and the objective at paragraph 5.29 to 'address community parking pressure across the borough through the introduction of controlled parking zones'.
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Cllr Liz McShane and I would like to thank everybody who has contacted us to express their views about this this. The whole process was initiated more than two years ago. There was a subsequent consultation. All three ward councillors met jointly with Council officers to discuss the published scheme. We agreed with Cllr David Beacham that the partial extension of the CPZ into smaller roads such as Outram might be problematic. During the last two years, since our election, we have been made aware of particular concerns about traffic and parking. As David has suggested, residents should lobby for a new consultation should parking pressures intensify. Our priority would be to ensure better communication and swifter action.
James, thanks for replying to this. I don't think it's at all fair for you to put the onus on residents to 'lobby for a new consultation' when many of those residents have already expressed their support for measures through the earlier consultation. From what I can infer from these messages, the result of that consultation and consequent council action was overruled at the request of Councillors due to a belief that implementation 'might be problematic'. Please correct me if I've got this wrong.
Additionally, CPZs are not all about 'parking pressures'. While there are many people who drive into to this area every day in the expectation that they will find all-day free parking within walking distance of a zone 3 station, CPZs are described on the council's own website as a key measure to 'reduce traffic congestion, improve road safety and promote other forms of transport' and reduce air pollution.
Yesterday the Mayor of London underlined the need to implement 'difficult policies' to tackle air pollution that 'is permanently affecting children’s lung development [and that] nearly 10,000 Londoners are dying early every single year because of long-term exposure'. Local authorities have a statutory duty to protect public health, some roads in this area already exceed legal limits for nitrogen dioxide. Haringey says on its own website that CPZs can reduce pollution. In this context it's hard for me to understand why Councillors seem content for these proposals to be dropped on the basis of what sounds like conjecture.
David, you have been collegial towards Liz and James, your Labour co-councillors, who are trying their best - I know that; but, as an opposition councillor (and one of my own party) you know very well how divisive to this neighbourhood some of the Council decisions of the past have been and how their inconsistencies in dealing with different segments of the neighbourhood (depending on who lives there) have time and again just caused new problems rather then solved the old ones.
What's good for the goose is good for the gander. Must be! This process was gone four fifths of the way when it was stopped, so it was not a policy that prompted the halt, but a late intervention from somewhere and you as an opposition councillor, I suspect, were not privy to that. I have every trust in all three of you who are our councillors, but no trust whatsoever in nimbism of some of our neighbours that had cost us so dearly in this neighbourhood in the past. We still have a number of to all practical purposes defunct residents' associations, road by road - literally, as a relic of that past (and you will only see their representatives at consultative meetings with the Council but what else they do apart from being consulted on all decisions is a mystery).
Some of us have worked very hard to get the neighbourhood to pull together - for that is in the interest of every one of us. You have spent countless hours as our councillor listening and trying to help. You know that the main residents' association was reduced to Palace Gates Road only (hence the PGRA as the name) as all other roads ended up fighting each other over one way system (over who and how it would affect) and that our Chair Jimmy Atahanasiou, a lifelong Labour member, campaigned for Lib Dems here, just to get things that would benefit the neighbourhood as whole - alas, to no avail. And here we are again in the grips of our byzantine local powers that had made Haringey one of the Private Eye rotten boroughs. I am fed up with it all - two steps forward, two steps back; twenty years of it would make anyone fed up. I hope we hear from Liz and James too.
A new consultation could take another 2 years to resolve based on the timescale to date. That isn’t what residents who voted for the extension and bear the impact of the current parking pressure have said they wanted. You said that splitting Princes/Outram/Clyde "made no sense and I said so. Since then I think that residents in these roads have largely taken the same view”. I think your statement must be modified to reflect that only the residents 'just outside the proposed CPZ extension’ have largely taken that view. Is there no option to extend the CPZ to include all of these 3 roads rather than scrap the CPZ extension that many people voted for?
Hi everyone,
I was a little surprised to see the scrapping of the proposed CPZ extension but there again not too surprised given the whole drawn-out saga of the consultation.
When we (the councillors and officers) first talked about the consultation I proffered the view that some roads in the consultation area should be treated as part-roads considering their length (Alexandra Park Road obviously and Victoria Road). When the proposed extension was eventually published by the Council, I was surprised to see that whilst APR and Victoria were treated as such, Princes Avenue, Outram Road and Clyde Road were also going to be split. This to me made no sense and I said so. Since then I think that residents in these roads have largely taken the same view
More delay ensued and a meeting was due to be held last week with the new Cabinet Member for Environment with councillors and officers to discuss a way forward but events have overtaken that and there was no meeting.
My view is that the whole process has been mismanaged throughout and has taken far too long to get anywhere and so perhaps it really is best to start all over again. If parking pressures itensify in the future, then residents can lobby the Council to start a new consultation.
A resident in Victoria Road has asked the Council about the status of the statutory consultation i.e.if the Council is bound by it or not. I suspect it will be advisory only but I wait the Council's response with interest.
This is a strange turn of events and the Council appear to have broken their own rules.
The CPZ now in operation is the result of the petition by the residents of the lower end of Alexandra Park Rd and Palace Gates Rd three years ago (the subsequent survey confirmed a majority in favour of CPZ in those roads and the scheme was put in place only there). However, the condition of the CPZ introduction in those roads was that the residents in the roads in the immediate vicinity would after 6 months have a vote on whether to have the CPZ extended to their roads too as there was going to be a degree of displacement of parked vehicles (how far it goes varies from case to case, it can rarely be accurately predicted).
Outram Rd vote was split between the upper part affected by the displacement and the lower part not affected. The logic of introducing the CPZ in the upper half of the road may not be obvious from the start, but its aim was to stop commuters and residents from the CPZ zone parking their cars in Outram Rd to avoid paying. There is only so far people are prepared to walk from their front door/ train station to their car on regular basis.
But Crescent Rd and Dagmar Rd voted clearly in favour of the CPZ. It has been for some years the Council's policy that any road (or segment of the road where feasible or necessary) in which a majority voted in favour of CPZ would have the scheme installed, but no action would be taken where a majority opposed it. It is simple and straightforward. So, what has happened?
It seems that some individual residents lobbied vociferously for the scheme to be scrapped and our councillors now need to explain why a lengthy and costly but orderly process was reversed without proper consultation. Such arbitrariness opens way to patronage, nepotism, cliquishness, exclusion, bigotry, corruption... which erode our rights and effectiveness of those with authority over us.
I hope our councillors will read this and take action. We have some very loud individual voices in the neighbourhood, but the majority vote must be respected.
I did a stint on the PGRA stall at the summer fete yesterday and was approached by a few people pretty annoyed about this CPZ being dropped, mainly Dagmar Rd residents who said they are rarely able to park near their homes due to commuter parking. I'm sure others have the opposite opinion but they didn't talk to me. PGRA, the local residents association, were not approached to gauge the level of support, so who was?
I knew nothing about it until today as have not had the letter but would most certainly have spoken to Liz McShane on Sunday had I known. As far as I know, the councillors did a street walkabout one Saturday morning several weeks ago and clearly took the views of residents who would be adversely affected by the splitting of roads into greater account than the majority who voted in favour. I'm not aware of 'diminished support' on the part of anyone who voted in favour. This is a thoroughly undemocratic about-turn and councillors must come on here to explain the process that produced this outcome. Was no other option considered, such as extending the CPZ to include all parts of roads that had been due to be split?
We haven't had a letter in Clyde Road - but we fell outside the proposed CPZ by about 20 yards so never heard offcially about it anyway even though there would have been a big impact. I know that some people in the affected part of Clyde have been buying vouchers and permits so it isn't clear if this is the whole CPZ extension or just where Grant lives? Personally I hope it is cancelled as teh way it was introdiced on a peicemeal basis threatened to greatly affect relations between neighbours.
We live in interesting times!
We also have not received the letter, and are just in the proposed zone. Are some parts cancelled and others not?
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