No Southwark wide CPZ after all

[MrsR]

Received today....

 

Dear resident,

I am writing to let you know the council will not be going ahead with the proposals to implement controlled parking in the proposed Dulwich Hill zone.

The council is committed to the aspirations set out in our Streets for People strategy, including making it easier for residents to switch from using their cars to making journeys by foot, by cycling and on public transport. Controlled parking can bring many benefits for local people when introduced in the right places in the right way.

However, I recognise that the council’s previous proposals fell short. Through the course of the consultation, residents in many areas told us that they did not need or want controlled parking. We listened to these concerns and undertook more work to understand parking pressure and traffic levels in these areas. This work supports the view of residents that controlled parking is not currently needed in the Dulwich Hill area.

I thank all the residents who contacted us about this. I also want to thank your local ward councillors who have spent much of the last few weeks representing the concerns of local people, and setting out the need for a different approach.  We have listened to you and are changing our plans. The council’s previous proposals were not the right ones. We are learning the lessons from this and are sorry we got it wrong.

I want to again thank all the residents who have contacted us about this. We greatly value the time that you have taken to share your views.

Yours sincerely,

Cllr James McAsh

 

[sunbob]

I live in that zone (just checked Southwark's map) but didn't get a consultation or the letter you've posted today! I wonder how they ensure that all addresses are covered and what's gone wrong?

[tiddles]

I think you only get the email if you have contacted them regarding this issue. 

[indiepanda]

The consultation wasn't very well advertised from memory, I think I had to go and find it online.

I got the same email as the above, but I had written to the council to object as well as taken part in the consultation.

[first mate]

It'll be interesting to see if a similar conclusion is reached in Nunhead, where there is also no current need for controlled parking and where residents are not keen.

I am reminded of the rationale Cllr McAsh gave in support of the imposition of a Nunhead CPZ and it was along the lines of 'why should car owning Nunhead residents enjoy free parking and cleaner air when residents in other areas, closer to the centre, have to pay for parking and have more pollution?' The former does not really make sense if suddenly it is felt somewhere like Dulwich Hill does not need controlled parking, after all?

[Radiohead]

The arguments on fairness and inequity that had more recently been advanced by the Council were always spurious.

 

The other parts of the borough that voted to have CPZs in the past had voted in that way as they were persuaded by the local benefits they were told by the Council would follow. Those in favour of a CPZ for their area consented to paying for a permit in order to use the relevant parking zone; they also consented in the full knowledge that parking in other areas of the borough was not subject to a CPZ.

 

In fact, those that voted for a CPZ in particular areas voted for there to be an "inequity" across the borough and, we can assume as they were only voting in respect of their own areas, were not in reality concerned at the fact that parking was treated differently in different parts of the borough.

 

The "inequity" that was created by those voting in other areas of the borough for their own CPZs was then turned on its head by the Council more recently, with the result that those who in this area opposed the introduction of a CPZ were (until recently) to have this "benefit" forced on them on the basis that it was apparently now unfair for those who wanted the benefit of a CPZ (and were willing to pay for such benefit) to be the only recipients of it.

[Spartacus]

I wonder if a new consultation will appear after the next general election 🤔 

[Rockets]

There will be a new one in Dulwich Village for the small area where the council thinks that they have support for it which will be very interesting - especially if they do put a yes/no response mechanism in it this time as they have promised to do. But on the basis of the "mandate argument" posited by some about this council being re-elected can we now definitively say that they do not have a mandate to do this in the Dulwich Village or Dulwich Hill wards and should not be able to revisit until after the next local council elections? One wonders whether they might now try and implement something in the Goose Green ward (which is the only ward that could be considered to have parking issues due to the proximity to Lordship Lane).

[first mate]

Please no!