Residents Parking Permits

[Fuschia]

James Barber Wrote:

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> No reason why a CPZ near ED station could'nt be

> created that operated 11am to noon - this

> minimises impact on passing trade for shops. Would

> mean visitors coming for lunch wouldn't be

> impacted

Actually, it would probably impact a lot on muns/babies who tend to have early lunches. I have driven a few times to baby groups nr ED hospital that I fear could end up in the zone...as would the library... its morning sessions would be affected.

[James Barber]

Hi Fuschia,

I'm not sure that many mums drive to Melbourne, Derwent, Elsie, tintagel or Matham to have lunch between 11am and noon.

If a scheme were to ever happen would noon-1pm be better for mums. I don't think so.

As a dad I've always used push chair or bus - bus didn't work with our double buggy but everywhere locally seems within 10mins push.

I kind of see your point about Grove Vale library morning session but surely people walk/push buggies there?

[Huguenot]

Loz, the results to the survey were posted in .xls format as an attachment on the forum.

You can see the survey close here.

I've lost the original as I've moved house, country and PC since then. It may be that Admin has a practical way of searching the server for an xls attachment.

It may be that I saved the xls on some portable hard drive and put it somewhere clever. However, as I said, they were posted on the forum. The survey end date was mid-March 2008.

I'm happy to run one again.

[peckhamboy]

James - isn't the point that restricted parking for any length of time between say 9am and 6pm would have the effect of deterring commuters? So even half an hour of restricted parking at 10am would establish whether the problem is commuters or (more likely) that there are simply more cars owned by residents of most streets than there are spaces to park them, which is then exacerbated by a small increase due to commuter parking? Why would it have to be an hour over lunch?

[Huguenot]

peckhamboy, I posted a comment on why it can't be a very short space of time earlier - there needs to be a realistic chance of the offender being caught, and the shorter the time limit the more expensive this is.

[Penguin68]

Whilst being wholly against any CPZs (anywhere) the restriction time must be placed sufficiently late that staggered time commuting cannot take place (if that is the point of the CPZ) - 10.00-10.30am might be a little early - but 11.00-11.15 (say) would effect hardly anyone entering the zone for purposes within the zone, but would drive (!) commuting parkers away, wouldn't disrupt local lunch trade etc. etc.

A CPZ 'parking ticket' could be sent out automatically free each year with the Council tax demand (would thus go to locals and save posting costs) - with additional tickets sent at a nominal fee (??5) for households with additional cars (proofs, i.e. photocopies of log books with correct address might be required). Anything other than that smacks of revenue generation, not of consideration for locals. Tickets would be household, not car specific.

People who 'vote' for CPZs are frequently simply voting to be taxed and fined - which I resolutely refuse to do.

[cate]

Good idea Penguin, but I doubt Southwark would do that if implemented!

[Huguenot]

"Tickets would be household, not car specific."?

Eh, is their house double parked?

When you talk about a parking 'ticket' being sent out, do you actually mean a parking permit?

If permits are free, who pays for the creation and the policing of the zone? You can't expect it to come from general taxation, as it's not fair that someone on the breadline in Elephant should be paying so you can park outside your house in ED.

I've already explained twice why a 15 min window wouldn't work.

[Loz]

Huguenot Wrote:

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> The length of time is probably as much to do with

> practical implementation as principle: in order

> for it to work drivers would have to have a

> reasonable expectation of being caught.

>

> For example, if it took 20 wardens to police all

> the roads in a 30 minute window, it would only

> take 5 wardens to police all the roads in a two

> hour window. If you then decided that the cut-off

> point for motorists was a 50:50 chance of getting

> caught you'd only need to do half the roads on

> alternate days, cutting the requirement to 2.

>

> Since the wardens are part funded by the residents

> permit fee, the larger the time window, the

> cheaper the permit.

But that has the underlying expectation that a large percentage of infringers on any one day must be caught. If you went for a 30 min window and patrolled about 20% of the area in any one day then a commuter would expect to be ticketed at least once a week on average. Any "hit spots" could be given extra patrols. That would still provide the necessary deterrent whilst minimising the time of the zone and therefore minimising the impact on local people. And also minimising the cost to the council.

[Huguenot]

True dat, but on that basis you could half the cost again by making it an hour window. A longer period is always going to be cheaper to cover the same ground.

There's other practical elements. Wardens won't take a job for only half an hour a day. So to make the best from them you'd need to rotate them to another CPZ area in-between restricted periods.

The more 'moves' you have in a day, the smaller the productive percentage of their day - their service becomes less efficient.

[peckhamboy]

Take that to its logical conclusion, and you end up with 7am-6pm CPZs and one warden per zone.

[cate]

The wardens just whizz around on those little motorcycles - so what would be the problem in them going somewhere else. There are CPZs all around here - Denmark Hill, Peckham, Camberwell.

[Huguenot]

peckhamboy, that would only be the logical conclusion if there weren't other things to consider.

I'm merely suggesting finding some sort of reasonable compromise between the length of the controlled period, its effectivness, and the cost to local residents. 15 mins is the smallest period, but may not deliver on the other elements. 13 hours may be the most cost efficient, but doesn't deliver on residential requirements.

cate, some have bikes, some have cars (remember the threads complaining about their parking skills?). It doesn't detract from the fact that transit time is wasted time, and area work needs to be co-ordinated. Fragmented CPZs and erratic periods just don't help, that's all.

[Penguin68]

I thought the point was to catch commuters parking in Melbourne Grove - 15 minutes is ample time to catch someone who has been parked there since 8.30 and won't be back until after 5.00 - they won't have a permit (sorry about using the word ticket, oh how annoying that must be) - anyone parked at that time without a permit gets booked, anyone else doesn't. If some wardens won't take a job for half an hour, or fifteen minutes even, then find someone who would - it would be a great job for soemone who has children at achool and nothing much to do mid morning.

I am really really not interested in creating efficient traffic nazis - happy to see that job go completely to the wall.

[Bobby P]

I guess Christmas is coming, and it should be no surprise that some turkeys perennially consider voting for it. I wonder how many Melbourne Grove-ites have had the misfortune to actually live under a CPZ before, and to know the pointless pain (financial and otherwise) they would inflict upon themselves and their neighbours if one were implemented.

The only people who benefit are Councillors trying to plug their budget deficits.

[2Sheds]

Parking in Matham Grove used to be easy! The history goes like this; Introduction of Bus Lane along Lordship Lane, the conversion of empty properties above shops on Lordship Lane (many were empty but now converted to two flats a piece), and the re-routing of the 37 bus to the end of East Dulwich Grove. (Double yellow lines from Lordship Lane down to Derwent Grove and beyond on one side) It?s no wonder parking has become difficult.

Who are ?these people? who clog up Matham Grove? Residents, traders and shoppers! Generally over night we have 5 or 6 spaces. In the morning some residents drive off to work and the spaces are filled with traders (including banks, estate agents etc). During the day residents come and go and so do shoppers. Throughout the day the chefs, waiters and delivery boys arrive and they stay until around midnight. Around 6pm the shopkeepers lock up, the residents return and that?s it! No free spaces!!

Looking up my street now I can see 32 cars. 16 belong to residents, 11 belong to shopkeepers, (including 7 estate agents) and 5 unknown to me. I guess that many of the other streets off Lordship Lane follow a similar pattern.

I?m not convinced that our problems are down to commuters. Everybody wants to park close to their home but before we start to think about CPZs some serious research needs to go into the cause of our problems and the benefits that CPZ will bring us, if any, apart from being lighter in the pocket.

[mattbrownis]

2Sheds Wrote:

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> Looking up my street now I can see 32 cars. 16

> belong to residents, 11 belong to shopkeepers,

> (including 7 estate agents) and 5 unknown to me. I

> guess that many of the other streets off Lordship

> Lane follow a similar pattern.

That's one hell of a nosey neighbour

[kford]

What Bobby P said. If you have the convenience of living near a station or off a high street, expect other people to park there. It's like buying a house next to a railway line or under a flight path and complaining about the noise.

And to be 'effective' a CPZ would have to extend all the way to the Plough, or beyond 20 minutes' walk. What's stopping residents from there parking in your street? After all, they'd have the same permit. It happens in Clapham all the time. Residents from Clapham Common park-and-ride from Wandsworth Road and Clapham High Street, using the same permits as those affected by the parking.

Meanchile, the council, and their foreign contractors, cream it.

[Dorothy]

Apologies in advance for possibly the most vague/unhelpful post on this thread:

I was told by an Estate Agent (yes, boo hiss etc) who has worked in the area for a very long time, that there is a reason why we don't have parking permits anywhere in East Dulwich and it is something to do with The Dulwich Estate and a covenant on the land. If you think about it, we must be one of the only places in London that does not have them (very close to the station) - our neighbouring boroughs do. So why would that be?

[cate]

Dorothy, very interesting, but that wouldn't affect all areas in ED would it. How far down does the Dulwich Estate extend?

And what kford said is very true and very obvious. I specifically didn't buy somewhere in Derwent Grove because I felt the parking was diabolical. Same with the roads immediately behind LL and off Northcross, like Nutfield Road.

[Pugwash]

The introduction of CPZ in various parts of Southwark, especially in the Half Moon Lane area, has made life difficult for us workers who have to travel about the borough for our job. This had lead to my employer having to provide all essential users parking permits which cover the whole of Southwark 's roads and council estates. District Nurses and care workers have difficulty in getting to elderly/disabled/ill clients and now have to apply for medical exception permits

I worked in Lambeth many years ago where there were CPZ in every street in one particular area (about 12 - 14 streets in all) each street had a different permit zone. If you could not park in your street in Zone A, you could not nip round the corner to park as that was Zone B and so on. There was uproar by local residents especially those who were elderly or had young children. Us workers used to drive part way, and get a bus or walk the rest of the way - added considerably to the time we were able to visit people and the number of people we could see in the day.

I try never to use my car in the Lordship Lane area, the only exception is that when I book into my garage for a service, I take the car down the night before - around 7.30 - 8.30, park, return the next morning with the keys - otherwise would not be anywhere near the garage.

[2Sheds]

> Looking up my street now I can see 32 cars. 16

> belong to residents, 11 belong to shopkeepers,

> (including 7 estate agents) and 5 unknown to me. I

> guess that many of the other streets off Lordship

> Lane follow a similar pattern.

That's one hell of a nosey neighbour

No mattbrownis !

Small street with a good community feel - lived here 26 years - know everybody!

Don't you wish you had the same?;-)

[Huggers]

I came here from Pimlico and before that Brixton, both residents parking areas. Let me tell you it was hell. In Pimlico I could never park in my street despite paying the hefty yearly residential parking permit rate. I would often have to park overnight on a single yellow line and have to dash to move car before wardens in morning- wardens who would be waiting to pounce- and this with two small children. Never able to unload shopping outside my house. No visitors- even midwives- without them anxiously checking the window/clock/meter all the time.

The parking places were actually reduced by a permit system. There were far fewer places to park because of all the yellow lines between permit spaces- which before had been free parking places.

Don't let me even start about Brixton, where wardens try to find ways to do you even if you have a lawful ticket or permit.

[Penguin68]

The very moderate Herne Hill scheme apart (as far as I can see) CPZs are about one thing only - revenue generation. I have found few people who have lived inside 'heavy duty' CPZs (as I have in the past) who have discovered that their own parking is now any easier or less fraught - indeed in the main the way it is wardened increases stress and anxiety of residents (exacerbated by the fact that they are having to pay for an increase in stress). The ultimate twist to the torture is micro-zones - where you are buying access only to a tiny portion of the road - and where trying to park even in the next street - sometimes in long roads even the next section of street - places you on the same footing as the most casual of visitors - allowed only to do so well into the evening, if at all, and forced to rise at dawn to find a legitimate parking space. Ciy hall control freaks love this sort of thing, they'd tax the air we breathe if they could think of a method of doing so; our role must be to scotch their desires at every turn. Believe me, if you live now in an over-parked road you will see no change, other than a reduced bank balance, in your lives if it is introduced. No, I correct myself, you will find some local businesses closing or having to charge more because of the disruption to their trade, but then so will those not trapped into this lunacy who enjoy ED facilities.

So, broadly, you may be able to infer that I'm probably against CPZs

[James Barber]

But what if we had the Hern Hill type system?

Lots of people sagainst the usualy blanket all day long schemes - I agree they're painful and I've lived in one and having visitors was a nightmare. But the Herne Hill type scheme operating for 1 or 2 hours a day for streets within 5 mins walk of East Dulwich railway station would surely help residents on those streets.