Disabled parking spaces are not needed, use the free parking spaces!

Mr Mustard has read some stupid letters in his time (and written a few, Ed) and just when he thinks NSL in Croydon have been bashed into shape by the council's parking manager the staff go all native again and let him down.

Here is an extract from a letter which Mr Mustard received today:

Mr Mustard was of the opinion that blue badge parking spaces were put in town centres for the benefit of the disabled, as they can't walk very far (or are blind - and have a driver) and apart from a very small number of confusing time limited loading bay / free parking spots (max 15 mins) there isn't any free parking in town centres, including North Finchley where this PCN was dished out.

The council letter is unsympathetic and unrealistic. Mr Mustard doesn't know if they, or the council, employ any disabled people to consider representations but he thinks they should and that all representations regarding blue badges should be handled by a disabled person.

The council are, Mr Mustard hears, about to employ more staff in house to handle representations as a recent decision at the Traffic Penalty Tribunal went against Gloucester County Council and the council are going to jump in this regard before they are pushed. Perhaps this would be a good opportunity to increase the number of disabled employees.

Mr Mustard thought that twas the season of goodwill but he forgot that this is a parking matter, so there isn't any. Bah humbug from NSL at Croydon.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Secret free parking - so secret the traffic warden doesn't know.

Hadley Green, EN5

One of the supposed benefits of PayByPhone is that if you can see the sign from the comfort of your car then you don't need to leave it. Regular users of the system who stop at the same location quite often only need to check that the sign looks like the one that was there last time they parked and then make their payment.

Should there be a 2 hour free period, it should be on the face of this sign which is on Hadley Green in Chipping Barnet, just past the pond on the right as you head north.

There is a free 2 hour parking period at this location (and unlimited free parking after 2.30pm in the week until 8 the next morning but not on a Saturday) but you would only know if you got out of your car and walked around the other side of the post and found this second sign, which is set rather too high for easy reading:

So where shall we start?

The council have failed to properly sign the rules so people have paid and been given a PCN in error. They should all be automatically refunded.

Many people will have paid for parking that should have been free. You can ask for a refund of all up to 2 hour payments as they have been paid under mistake, going back to when the free 2 hour period started in December 2013.

A traffic warden issued a PCN there on 11 August 14 to a lady who knew the rules and stayed for less than 2 hours. Her initial representations have been rejected. Mr Mustard is about to take over and then they will be accepted, he thinks and if they aren't the council will waste a £40 fee going to PATAS where they will lose.

Don't the Notice Processing Officers who rejected the representations know there is 2 hours free at this location either?

If traffic wardens had regular beats they would get to know the area and the rules better. Mind you it would help if the signs which they have to enforce were correct.

Anyone would think that the council didn't want you to take advantage of the free parking.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Update 15:20

Mr Mustard now has a copy of the thoroughly amateur and non-compliant sign that the council did put up last year and which has gone west.

30 minutes of "Free" parking would cost £3.2 million!

On 24 July the Environment Committee considered an item raised by Cllr Alan Schneiderman for 30 minutes of free parking in all Town Centres. Alan is clearly and properly worried that we will lose our High Streets which are valuable places of social cohesion.

The Lead Commissioner for Housing and Environment (Barnet Council delight in abstract titles for their staff) produced a report which left Alan dazed and confused, as it did Mr Mustard at first sight, as the cost for this eminently sensible idea was £3.2 million which was more than the entire parking income for the year (£3.0m).

At the meeting, quite wrongly, some pre-prepared information was handed out, but only to councillors. Mr Mustard wanted it and asked for a copy afterwards. This is the response he got:

I can confirm that all the papers circulated at committee last night will be appended to the committee minutes when they are published.

There is a question whether any decision taken would have been lawful as all papers should be published 5 days before the meeting. Mr Mustard doesn't personally mind too much if extra information is published a bit late as long as it goes on the website and copies are available at the meeting. Governance please take note.

Nearly a month later and the minutes have not yet been published which is rather tardy. It is a good job that a kindly soul pushed a copy through Mr Mustard's letterbox.

Mr Mustard turned on armchair audit mode and studied each figure closely.

He couldn't argue with the first 30 minutes representing 32% of all paid for parking, it seems to be in the right area and he hasn't got any data about income by time period. if you do, please let Mr Mustard know where to look.

The figure derived from reductions in PCN given out for codes 05 (Parked after the expiry of paid for time) and 82 (not 83) the same contravention in car parks, is utter tosh. In the year ended March 13 there were 3,054 PCN for code 05 and 389 for code 82. The value of those PCN at £45 each (average collection) is £154,935 and Mr Mustard ascribes half of those offence to short term parking periods.

The traffic warden (CEO) having to return to make sure you have not re-parked for another free 30 minutes (how many people could be bothered, really?) would not prevent the issue of 10% of PCN across the whole borough as for much of the time the traffic wardens are patrolling CPZs looking out for missing and expired permits and there are other roads outside CPZs where they are looking for dropped kerbs that are blocked, double yellow lines and parking on the pavement. 

Secondly traffic wardens issue 2 PCN an hour. They can issue a PCN in under a minute if they are so inclined and they frequently do, let us take 2 minutes as the average time. So 4 minutes per hour are spent issuing PCN and 56 minutes per hour spent observing & patrolling (imagine a vulture circling in the sky) popping into Barclays in High Barnet and then using the cash point (yes that was Mr Mustard watching you Mr Traffic Warden) popping into High Barnet post office leaving their scooter outside, chatting on their mobiles and hiding from the rain, so there is no shortage of free time for logging.

Signs do not cost £150 each as a freedom of information request 2 years ago showed the true figure to be about half of that.

Extra income generated by more transactions, presumably by more people visiting the town and then deciding to stay longer than 30 minutes is about £166,000 as PayByPhone charges are about 10% of income. Someone forgot to put the (inconvenient) extra income into the chart. Mr Mustard has redone the figures, as follows:

30 minutes free	£
Cost of free parking – income foregone	976,000
Reduction in PCN income -	78,000
No return logging – slower PCN issue	0
New signs – 433 * 2	65,000
New car park signs	4,500
Reconfiguration of meters	20,000
Increased paybyphone fees	16,600
Total lost income / extra costs	1,160,100
less, extra income generated	166,000
Net cost	994,100

That is a much more palatable figure and split across the 20+ Town Centres is only £50,000 per town, which is chickenfeed compared to the potential benefits to Barnet society as a whole. Was the write of the report biased towards making the cost as high as possible? These are some snippets from the report which you can read on this link at item 6.

- There is an absence of data ... means that parking utilisation and turnover levels are not known (or, we have completely failed to properly track usage in the past so make decisions based on gut feel or revenue)

- free parking, would undoubtedly increase patronage (why not not just get on with it?)

- a free 30 minute parking period ....have a financial consequence (now we see the meat)

- Committee will... need to consider where funding for the other projects will come from (this is completely and absolutely the wrong way to look at things).

- for the financial year 2013/14, there is a surplus on the Special Parking Account of £7,543,640, and this money has been earmarked to pay for permitted projects. If 30 minutes free parking is introduced...this is expected to have an impact on the surplus by reducing it by £3.2million meaning that earmarked projects will not be viable or funding for these will have to come from the general fund.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

For a start the SPA for 20-13/14 has been made and cannot be changed. The SPA will only be reduced in the year that free parking were to be introduced. It is not permitted to rely on the SPA as a profit making centre in its own right. Any surplus generated can only be spent on certain transport related spending but that does not mean that those items, such as the Freedom Pass (which costs us about £10million in Barnet and wipes out the SPA surplus on its own) have to be funded entirely from the SPA. The SPA should not be relied on. Let us suppose, for a moment, that Barnet Council ran the SPA on a break even basis such that there was a zero surplus at the year-end. the Freedom pass would still have to be funded and it would have to come from the first line of payment, the general fund. that is what the general fund is for. Now Barnet can generate money from paid for parking and PCN and instead of accepting whatever amount happens to be generated each year an estimate is put into the budget and is then treated as a target to be achieved by hook or by crook; indeed,w hen the surplus was going to be lower than expected, a parking recovery plan was put in place mid-year.

So, if free parking were to be implement, we would be in a situation, based upon Mr mustard's figures of having a surplus of £6.5m rather than £7.5m, that is still £6.4m which could be used to subsidise the general fund. The £6.5m can then be earmarked, the "free parking" money which has been foregone never could be.

What was missing from the report? Any consideration of how much money might be generated for traders who pay a fortune in business rates and appear to get very little for them. Their business success is largely dependent upon the willingness of the council to invest in and properly manage the town centres. As business rates largely go to central government and as Barnet Council plead poverty all the time, they aren't rushing to make town centres fantastic places to visit. Free parking, rationed by time and not by money, would make a huge difference to the viability and popularity of town centres. What the report should have suggested was taking one town centre, one with low usage but half decent shops (Lodge Lane Car Park in North Finchley is at least half empty every time I look in it) asked some shop keepers for turnover figures for a 3 month period and then tried free parking for the same 3 month period this year to see if turnover went up and by how much. They could also have measured if the parking receipts & PCN went up or down overall. This would be by nature of a trial the results of which could then have been used to decide upon a borough-wide policy. The council don't seem to have the wit to try something so sensible. When our High Streets are in their death throes is probably when they will react and it will be much harder to revive them by then.

Officers need to turn their thinking around. The SPA is not a valid substitute for Council Tax. Did you learn nothing from the Residents Parking Judicial Review?

Please may we see more accurate and less biased reports to council committees in the future. If they relate to parking, be aware that they will be thoroughly dissected by Mr Mustard.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Parking in Chipping (High) Barnet

More of this councillors please, all over the borough.

It will help to save the High St.

Free parking in Chipping (High) Barnet

Lights to follow shortly

At last some good news on the parking front in Chipping Barnet. Some free parking bays, which have been carefully placed in the areas which are currently hardly used so the council isn't actually giving anything away and this won't hurt their projected income much at all.

The letter was 3 pages long so Mr Mustard took the scissors to it (old style cut and paste) and brings you the relevant parts:

click to enlarge

Note the crafty clawing back of funds by making over 2 hours on Hadley Green £4.55 whereas before it might have been £2.60 (for up to 3 hours). If you are staying longer Mr Mustard recommends parking on the edge of the CPZ and walking in (not the St Albans Rd please as that is becoming dangerous). Better maps are coming of the CPZ areas, Mr Mustard will be road testing them during the development stage and will report back at the time.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

What if town centre parking were free?

What would happen if town centre parking were free? Well, naturally the income from paid for parking would go down to zero (space can be rationed by time as well as by money) and the number of PCN for not paying would reduce. The number of PCN for overstaying would stay the same.  The costs of providing traffic wardens and back office processing would reduce in proportion and the amount of money paid to Verrus for the PayByPhone system would also go to zero saving about £325,000 a year.

This is what Mr Mustard thinks the Special Parking Account would roughly look like if parking were rationed by time instead of by money.

Category	Existing	Free
		parking
	£	£
Permit income	3,073,836	3,073,836
Paid for parking	2,945,682	-
Bus Lane penalties	831,492	831,492
Parking Penalty Charge Notices	5,003,385	4,020,577
Total income	11,854,395	7,925,905
Costs	4,661,253	3,864,825
Surplus ("profit")	7,193,142	4,061,080

How terrible, the council would only trouser the odd £4million. Not too shabby is it?

What might happen in town centres? Mr Mustard thinks that they would have the chance to regenerate.

Of course, even though they say parking charges aren't there to revenue raise, the fact that they are in the Annual Budget means that the £3m reduction in the parking surplus would have to be found from somewhere else. Half of it could be found from not reducing council tax by 1% in the next year.

The Council Leader Richard Cornelius is concerned about High Barnet town centre (not a marginal ward is it?) and came for a look around one afternoon recently. He was spotted and got told it was parking that was the problem. Richard really didn't even need to leave his home in Totteridge to work that out as the largely unrestricted Whetstone High Rd is trading quite well. So here's a thought Richard. Try out my idea in two town centres (yes, North Finchley and Chipping Barnet, where else) and see if all the traders get off your back, see trade slowly pick up and then you can then ask for votes on the grounds that you are saving the High Streets (the ones that removing cash parking meters from ruined; your administration but we won't mention that, well except to the 500 people a day who read this). If the idea works then extend it, if it doesn't work then at least you will have tried somehting rather than done nothing. It is the duty of the council to act positively towards High Streets not to cash cow them out of existence.

Thinking outside of the (money) box. That is what you are given huge allowances for isn't it Richard, lateral and/or radical thinking? Go on, give it a try, you might even get a taste for it.

Mr Mustard doesn't want to live in a world without High Streets.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Bugger Barnet

Mr Mustard is sure that when Brian Coleman had the idea of saving money by removing the cash parking meter facility, so that cash didn't need collecting, he wasn't thinking a la King George V with his supposed Bugger Bognor remark, "Bugger Barnet" but that he was doing the council and the residents a great service. Sadly, as recent history has shown us, he was completely wrong and yesterday afternoon at 1.30 in the Moxon Street car park the number of cars was, bugger all.

it could do with a bit of a sweep as well.

That is also what Dean Cohen seems to be achieving since he took over the parking portfolio about a year ago. Bold decisions are needed and have not been made. If only 7 cars have paid to park and there are 62 spaces (58 for anyone, 3 for blue badge holders and 1 reserved - who is it reserved for is a question that needs to be answered) then you have to ask yourself if maybe a radical new strategy is needed? If cars are not in the car park then fewer shoppers are in the shops and the town of Chipping Barnet is slowly withering.

We want a thriving High Street. Rather than looking at car parks as a cash cow, and this one is pretty dry at present, then maybe we should be looking at making them free for up to 4 hours. That would stop commuters and workers from parking there all day whilst leaving the way clear for people to come and use our shops, restaurants and hairdressers without the worry of getting a parking ticket at the extortionate charge of £110 and would generate a high turnover of people, at least 3 per space per day.

Parking meters that take credit cards, not of course the ones that also take cash that traders told the council were required, would help a little, but they are supposedly coming tomorrow or the next day or the one after that; who can say? certainly not Dean Cohen.

We need less emphasis from the council on making £7,000,000+ a year from parking charges, permits and penalty charge notices in order to subsidise Council Tax and more responsibility being taken on their shoulders for keeping town centres in business.

When it's gone it's gone!

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

A continental Christmas

Mr Mustard offers his abject apologies for having failed to write anything since before Christmas. He had produced a fair amount during the year and needed a rest so he popped over to the continent for some warmer air. There is an excellent 3 part review of the year 2012 on the Mrs Angry of Broken Barnet blog, starting here.

He stayed a night or two in Orléans, in central France, to the south-west of Paris and situated on the Loire.

Mr Mustard is never really on holiday though and in this town of 150,000 he noticed things that he would like to see in Barnet.

His hotel was close to the main railway station and only 5 minutes walk from the main square and on the edge of the shopping district. From the hotel window Mr Mustard could see this car park.

It has beautiful tarmac which must have cost quite a lot and yet the car park was free of charge. Think how that improves the quality of life of the motorist and trade for local businesses.

The Christmas of lights in Barnet were not plentiful or very attractive. This is how they are in one road in Orléans.

That is only half of that street. The other half is the same.

It isn't the only decorated street either. There were lots. Here is one more.

You will have noticed the tram in the earlier picture. Cars & buses, pedestrians, cyclists and trams all got on happily together thanks to well designed road layouts. Lots to learn there for Barnet.

The town square had a thriving food market well into the evening. Below the town square was the usual multi level car park. Barnet has few squares and none of them have parking below as far as Mr Mustard is aware (think Cavendish Sq just off Oxford St). We really do need to see more imagination and investment from the council when it comes to how we live. There is a lot to learn from on the continent.

Following these musings, normal service will resume.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Perfect Peckham Parking Policy

Try saying that after your office Christmas party!

Look at this screen dump from the Southwark Council website.

Free weekend parking for the month of December in council car parks. Sounds like they are putting the community first. Cash still accepted in Peckham if you do have to pay; how convenient.

Whilst in Southwark please keep an eye out for this statue stolen from Dulwich Park one night this week ( Mr Mustard actually looked at it last Sunday ) 

by Barbara Hepworth ( http://www.barbarahepworth.org.uk/ )

If you see it, or what looks like it could be a piece of it, maybe in a scrap yard casually leaning up against some scrapped parking meters, do please call the police.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Cabinet Member for Safety does something marvellous

Oh Cllr Longstaff, this isn't about you! It's about Cllr Craske of Bexley ( see This is Local London for the original story here )

A quick snippet.

BEXLEY Council is scrapping parking charges for six days at 12 car parks as a Christmas present for businesses and shoppers.

The free car parks will be available from Saturday (December 24) to Tuesday (December 27) and then January 1 and 2.

Read the rest at this link 

Barnet and Bexley. Both six letters starting with B and there the similary ends.

Barnet Council - not Putting the Community First.

Bexley Council - Listening to you, working for you

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard