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Town Hall’s quiet panic over lower parking revenues
• THE secretive changes in Camden’s parking department uncovered (New Journal October 23) are worthy of further examination – but the council’s scrutiny processes seem to be seriously lacking.
Last week I pressed the council further on its astonishing 267 per cent hike in builder’s parking permits, a source of major complaint with local people who have seen charges rise from £9 a day to an extortionate £33. Why have these charges come about? The answer, it seems, is that the council wanted to bring its charges “in line with Westminster” (their words, not mine).
Fees for car clubs, a worthwhile green endeavour to lower car use set up in 2004, went up by 18 per cent in 2006, and then 8 per cent in each following year: hardly a practical example of a “green” council.
Last year the council reported a surplus of £10million on its spending, a large part of this excess was made up by excess parking revenues. This year the Town Hall is in a quiet panic that revenues are much lower, despite the council creating a multi-million pound reserve to deal with variations in parking income.
All the while the parking department was undertaking a massive internal service restructuring, of which nothing has been said to elected councillors and therefore there has been little scrutiny allowed by the leadership about the aims of parking policy. If people want proof of poor decisions made in secret than they should look no further than the report of the Lib Dem-chaired environment scrutiny committee where nothing has been said about parking policy over the last year at all.
Cllr Theo Blackwell
Shadow finance spokesperson, Labour |
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