Parking in Barnet - Focus group messages

Focus

Although the Questions to and answers from the Leader of the council (not all answered by him, just what they are called) are full of pointless petty political point scoring (The Barnet Council chamber is not the House of Commons) the odd sensible question and answer do appear, like this one from Tuesday 6 April 14:

Question 26 Councillor Alan Schneiderman

Has the Cabinet Member now had time to identify the key messages coming out of the parking focus groups held in December and January; and if so what are they?

Answer by Councillor Dean Cohen

Yes and the key messages are as follows:

1. That we should relax enforcement – Civil Enforcement Officers are considered to be “ruthless and inflexible” (Absolutely no surprise there)

2. Free or cheap parking – free parking for 15-30 minutes are suggested in shopping streets and centres (what a good idea)

3. Straightforward payment methods (by which people probably meant cash)

4. Level of fines – it is suggested that there should be reduced car parking fines (but this is not under the Council’s control.) (Actually it is, the council could choose to accept the 50% rate at any time as they have a wide discretion. It would be an interesting experiment to see if compliance improved and payment collection percentages increased)

5. Council Policy and Engagement – This supports the development of a comprehensive parking policy and further engagement but suggested that residents would also like to have reviews of all controls and that we should provide additional parking.

6. Controlled parking – residents are concerned about the “myriad of variations in restrictions” so clearly we need to better explain the need for locally appropriate controls (or have less myriad variations)

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

No votes for Cllrs Gordon, Rayner & Scannell

Mr Mustard has a busy diary. He already had an almost full week of social engagements for this week when the cash parking meter task and finish group tried to ruin it. He managed to fit in the Tuesday meeting when evidence was being collected from the public but couldn't do the Thursday "decision" meeting as he had a PATAS hearing at which he represented a local resident at 6pm and dinner with a friend in borough market at 7pm. (The resident was also there and did a grand job of putting his own case forward, the adjudicator was won over in 12 minutes and cancelled the PCN and afterwards made a remark about the usual Barnet Council presentation of evidence not being very good, NSL do it for them).

Luckily Dan of the Barnet Bugle was on hand to record the meeting for posterity and you can find the video here.

Mr Mustard is listening to the audio whilst writing this blog and he also had a slow motion version of the meeting when he surfaced at East Finchley and his tweets started to come through on his phone.

There was lots of talk about the known cost and where it would come from and about the difficulty in pinning down how much income and extra people it would bring in. They forget that the removal of meters caused the turnover of some traders to fall by 30% and so putting them back would reverse some of that effect.

Having looked at the costs, Paul Shea, the boss of Tally Ho Discount (a fine place to buy fruit and veg for much less than the supermarkets sell them for) thought they were overstated so, with a little help in presentation from Mr Mustard, he sent councillors a comparison of what he thought were more accurate costings and here they are:

Cash parking meters - break even estimate	Per council figures			Per Finchley traders
	Year 1	Year 2		Year 1	Year 2
	50 of	50 of		50 of	50 of
Purchase cost debit/credit & cash machines	192,500	192,500		192,500	192,500
Spread cost over life time, say 4 years	48,125	48,125		48,125	48,125
Signs, maintenance & ticket rolls	125,000	35,000		16,500	0
Cash collection cost	195,000	195,000		100,000	100,000
Cost per year - total	368,125	278,125		164,625	148,125
Cost per machine	7,363	5,563		3,293	2,963
Maintenance cost	611	611		611	611
Total cost per machine per year	7,974	6,174		3,904	3,574
Operative 52 weeks and 6 days a week = 312 days, so daily cost	26	20		13	11
Anything above this figure per day is profit	26	20		13	11

Now one of the things that Cllr Gordon was worrying about was where the money would come from to fund the parking meters.

There are two ways of looking at this. The simple one is that parking meters are like fruit machines, people put money in and never see it again.

The second, more formal answer, is that the Special Parking Account makes an absolute packet as you will see from the figures to 31 March 2013.

Year ended 31 March 2013	£
Penalty Charge Notices – parking	5,003,385
Bus Lane PCN	831,492
Permits	3,073,836
Paid for parking	2,945,682
Total income	11,854,395
Costs	4,661,253
Surplus	7,193,142

It is clear that there is plenty of money with which to fund the purchase of more parking meters.

This easily answers the question of Cllr Gordon "How are we going to find the money?"

and "Where are the cuts going to be made"

There can't be cuts in other services unless the council are banking on the money from the Special Parking Account to fund other things, which they clearly are. This is utterly wrong.

The meeting concludes without a decision as to whether to put cash parking meters back or not which was the whole point of the task and finish group. There were various tinkering ideas put forward which were not within the remit of the T&FG - what a joke. Cllr Gordon didn't want to make a radical decision, instead he has presided over a ridiculous T&FG.

Now that we are talking of procrastination, Mr Mustard has some to suggest.

Don't bother voting for Cllr Gordon in May 14, leave your decision until August 14. He will be standing in Edgware ward.

Don't bother voting for Cllr Rayner either in May 14, leave your decision until August 14. He currently represents Hale ward.

Don't bother voting for Cllr Scannell in May 14, leave your decision until August 14. She currently represents Edgware ward.

Whilst you are in the full swing of doing nothing Dean Cohen certainly didn't say anything in favour of cash parking meters when he appeared on Tuesday so leave your vote for him, if he stands again in Golders Green ward in May 14, until August 14.

Public service? Barnet? forget it.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

If you think that the procrastinating councillors got it wrong, and you want to see cash parking meters in your High Street and car parks then do please email any of the 4 councillors above and tell them so. They are paid to listen to you.

Task and Finish (off the traders) Group

Look, pedestrians, probably spending money in local shops

Last night Mr Mustard attended, along with other local business people and concerned residents, an open meeting of the Task & Finish Group about the possibility of installing cash parking meters once again.

Very little notice was given of the meetings and local bloggers, activists and residents associations, as well as the local paper all spread the word.

There were five people who had asked to speak (Mr Mustard had misunderstood, he put his evidence in and rather thought councillors would decide who they wanted to hear from but no, you self selected) and they all spoke eloquently of the devastation to their businesses (Helen Michael of Cafe Buzz and Paul Shea of Tally Ho Discount (very good for fruit and veg), both of which businesses mostly get paid in cash so their customers evidently have it to hand) and of changes to their shopping patterns (residents Barbara & Bob Jacobson) which led them to go places where parking is easier to pay for or free. There was a fair bit of heckling when Gail Laser, who represents the traders of High Barnet was refused permission as she hadn't put in her request in time and Cllr Gordon managed to get himself into a bit of a knot by saying he had only heard of traders from North Finchley and then refuse for a spare 5 minutes of time to be given to Gail who some councillors, and most of the audience, wanted to hear from.

Dan of the Barnet Bugle was doing sterling service as per usual, see his footage here, Mr Mustard showed his appreciation afterwards by buying him a pint of shandy in the Greyhound and shocked the staff by telling them that he had been under-charged. They totalled up his round again and accepted another £3.60 from him. You can't slip an obvious error by Mr Mustard.

When it came to the question of the whole galaxy of written submission, which councillors had probably all read in advance, Mr Mustard rather expected some open discussion of them. That was not to be. Instead Cllr Dean Cohen was allowed to the table to tell us how marvellous things were in High Barnet and Mill Hill and so on, based upon just one written submission, the one that partly favoured not having cash but in which it was pointed out that most of the provision in High Barnet is private car parking and takes cash. You couldn't make it up.

Anyone, then thank goodness Cllr Gordon said something which probably had the "Leader" Richard Cornelius groaning (Mr Mustard was in the front row and hadn't seen Richard come in from some other meeting) inwardly (Mr Mustard did invite Richard for a pint in the Greyhound but he had the missus with him, the Leaderene as she is apparently known so Mr Mustard offered to buy her a drink as well. Fighting back is very civilised in High Barnet but neither of them showed up). Anyway what Cllr Gordon asked aloud was

Is this (return of cash meters) economically viable?

How would it affect the budget?

What cuts would have to be made elsewhere?

If ever you wanted proof that Barnet Council is involved in illegal revenue raising from parking then that was it.

As an aside this morning a PATAS adjudicator asked Mr Mustard why he helped people with their appeals. He told her there were 9 reasons of which one was that the council were using parking tickets as revenue raisers (they all do that in London she said, whilst earning £50 an hour as part of the process!) and another that donations get made for charity. She described Mr Mustard's behaviour as strange which it may be but it also effective (although he was on a very rare review of an Appeal, which was granted, so the PCN was back in play for a second Appeal but his client blatantly parked where another person wouldn't have done and has probably done himself in despite the best efforts of Mr Mustard on the technical side).

There was one written submission which was sent to councillors but not to governance so it didn't get published. It is rather good so here it is in full:

To: 'cllr.b.gordon@barnet.gov.uk'; 'cllr.r.houston@barnet.gov.uk'; 'cllr.h.rayner@barnet.gov.uk'; 'cllr.j.scannell@barnet.gov.uk'; 'cllr.a.schneiderman@barnet.gov.uk'
Subject: Parking Policy (Cash Meters) Task and Finish Group


Dear Councillors

We are writing to you to implore you to bring back cash parking meters to our car parks and high streets.

Since November 2011 when the meters were disabled trade has been drastically down.

Time and time again first time customers who have made a dedicated trip to our specialist sweet and sugarcraft shop have been so frustrated that they cannot pay for parking and let us know that they will not be returning. You cannot expect people from other boroughs to register for pay by phone or risk searching for a scratch card vendor. They simply will not do it and to pretend that we’ve all got to move with the times is nonsense and ignores the facts: cashless parking is killing the high streets. This is not a situation where one solution is the fix and pay by phone and card payment methods are what is required in addition to cash payments.

In light of our current national economic circumstances the council should be doing all it can to help bring trade to our high streets rather than put up barriers. With the unfair competition from the expansion of out of town shopping centres and the redevelopment of Brent Cross (which have plentiful free parking) we need to make sure that the vitality of our local communities is maintained. The restoration of cash parking would be a start, periods of free parking such as free after three would then be a small step in the right direction.

Please bring back cash parking meters!

Yours sincerely,

Alice and Michael Kentish

Hopscotch

88 High Street, Barnet, Herts, EN5 5SN

There is another meeting on Thursday at 7pm at which the decision will be taken as to whether to recommend the return of cash meters or not. Please do go as Mr Mustard can't make that one.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard