Bromley -where they see clearly in retrospect

In order to send a PCN for a bus lane contravention it is a legal precondition that a council believes that a contravention has occurred. This belief has to be stated on the face of the PCN, like this

Mr Mustard was pretty sure there wasn't a contravention in this cctv clip.

Due to a previous problem, resolved by management in the motorists's favour, as no contravention had occurred, the traffic warden not having realised that a sign was back to front, a manager at the jointly managed Bromley & Bexley parking department had invited contact in the future if there was occasion to be unhappy. Mr Mustard was unhappy, as a PCN had been issued that was not merited. He sent a few questions in, now numbered, and the answers are in blue.

Mr Mustard's comments:

1. Good.

2. Good again except that it should have been the conclusion that a contravention did not occur.

3. Two independent viewings would be an improvement.

4. The cctv clip should not have been progressed to a PCN, that ought to be a contractual default.

5. It isn't essential that the person who decides if a contravention has occurred holds a driving licence but it would probably give them more insight and they could do their job better.

Mr Mustard wondered what would happen to the challenge, he didn't have long to wait.

Once Mr Mustard was rubbing the council's nose into the cctv and the obvious danger if the car had not moved left, Bromley Council could 'clearly' see why the car entered the bus lane and duly cancelled the PCN thus saving everyone a lot of wasted time fighting as far as the independent tribunal, which would likely have come to the same conclusion as Mr Mustard.

Mr Mustard thinks that more care will be taken for a while in Bromley and Bexley.

The end.

The parking cash cow and the future of the High Street

http://hugetrip.com/imagesvaranasi.html

Mr Mustard has this morning emailed Cllr Dean Cohen who inherited the parking problem as part of his portfolio when he took over from Brian Coleman. He has been passed a poisoned chalice and is new to Cabinet and Mr Mustard looks forward to receiving a considered response.

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21 November 2012

Dear Cllr Cohen

High dependency on parking income

You have responsibility for parking. The council have become reliant upon parking income during the last decade partly in order to artificially keep council tax down. It is probably not feasible to expect you to be able to stop this dependency overnight but a withdrawal from this nasty habit is required over the next 2 or 3 years.

A push in this direction is also coming from central government.

No compulsion to make a surplus

I attach a copy of the Road Traffic Regulation Act which sets out, inter alia, the uses on which any surplus from parking should be spent. The key point for me is however in paragraph 55(2). There is absolutely no requirement for the council to make a surplus out of parking (although having a buffer to carry forward of £1m might be sensible) but aiming for breakeven (the basis on which the Chipping Barnet CPZ was sold to us some 20+ years ago) or a modest surplus would be prudent.

Let us look at what you have inherited. See pages 37-39 of the Budget Book 2012-13.

Hindering the High Street

The intention is to make a surplus £6,895,970 in this financial year. The Cabinet met on 7 November to discuss a Growth Strategy for Barnet of which Chapter 1 was "Investing in regeneration and supporting business and enterprise". which doesn't seem to contain anything about reducing car parking charges to make the High Street a more attractive place to visit. It is one of the vital factors that must be taken into account. If parking charges, and the risk of getting one of 160,000 parking tickets issued every year, are not reduced you will never succeed in regenerating the High Street. The council controls one of the major factors that affects the viability of a High Street and as leaders you should be setting an example for others to follow - you are, but it is a bad one, taxing the High Street out of existence.

Parking tax of 4.2%

Page 37 shows that of the planned spending of £288m on services some £7m will come from The Special Parking Account ("SPA") of which more than half is the result of penalty charge notices. Moving on to page 38 the council tax requirement for the borough is £159m. If it were not for the excessive SPA surplus you would need to collect £166m so council tax is being subsidised by 4.2% by motorists instead of being paid by council tax payers generally. My own CPZ permit was increased in price from £40 to £100 p.a. last year which is an outrage and the elderly are put off from having visitors by the increase in the cost of all day visitor vouchers from £1 to £4.

Headed in the wrong direction

The projection for the next 2 years is headed in the wrong direction with an increase in the SPA of almost £500,000 in 2013/14. This will have to be reversed out and some scope for reduction found. If the cabinet hadn't decided upon another dubious council tax freeze then you would have had some room to move away from taxing a sub-set of society (High Streets, CPZ residents and the motorist in general) and could have more fairly spread the cost of providing services across the people who are meant to pay for them, council tax payers as a whole.

Not a revenue raiser

The point of parking tickets is not to raise revenue as the council are doing but to try and educate motorists to park fairly and with consideration for others and to ration space where it is in short supply. Sadly there will always be people who take a chance and keep on receiving tickets for blocking dropped kerbs, on double yellows or parked on the pavement (those offences are worthy of a penalty charge ) but penalising people for being 2 minutes over the time paid for (true), for dropping goods off at charity shops (yes, this happened), whilst mending a puncture (yes, this has happened ), whilst a child is choking on crisps on the back seat (unbelievably true), whilst a temporarily homeless person is living in their car (the council should be ashamed), these types of parking ticket just get the council a bad name and make them look like they have put the need for income above all else.

Radical thought and action required

This is a subject I have blogged about.

It might seem radical, and I would urge you to think much more radically than you have done so far (you are new to Cabinet so do need time to find your feet but the High Street doesn't have a lot of time so you do need to get your skates on please), but free parking throughout the High Street of different time periods would mean that shoppers could park, shop owners could not park outside their own shops all day, there would be a good turnover of visitors, and meters would not need to be purchased. The council could still issue parking tickets to regular, and the worst over-staying, offenders.

Will you, Dean Cohen, help to save the High Street?

Do please start planning for 2013/14 and let me know what positive steps you are going to take. Please be bold. Don't make the mistake of thinking that I will be fobbed off with what is in effect a single 2 hour free parking concession on one Saturday before Xmas. 

That is feeble.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Kiss me Quick - then Squeeze me slow

Mr Mustard talks to traffic wardens when he sees them out and about. Some run a mile and others shake his hand. He remarked on the new woolly hat that one of them was wearing for his winter duties and then, whilst thinking about the changes to parking charges over the 25 years during which Mr Mustard has had his office in Barnet, and his home for 19, he realised that Barnet Council have been slowly squeezing the life out of high streets and so a summer uniform hat sprang to his mind.

Do take a photo if you see a traffic warden wearing one next summer.

It is the role of a council to support its High Streets. The council manage many of the factors which dictate the success or failure of high streets chief among which is parking (both cost and method of payment). A shopkeeper could have fabulous bargains and an immaculately presented shop but if no-one is walking along the pavement then they are not going to step inside. The internet has taken some of the trade but not the cup of tea trade and for that people need to be easily able to park at reasonable rates (or even for nothing). 

Whilst he was searching for something else (on crossovers it was, he is still looking for that!) Mr Mustard came across the figures for the Special Parking Account for the year ended 31 March 2002. Great he thought, what a wonderful comparison that will make with 2012. Now Mr Mustard always tries to be objective, in which case any comparison has to take account of inflation and population growth. On to the Office for National Statistics he went and found indices of 174.5 from 2002 and 240.8 from 2012. That gives an inflation factor in the decade of 1.38. Mr Mustard took an educated guess at population growth and went for 10% although it was probably a point or two lower than that. Add .1 to 1.38 and you should have increased income of 48% if the council have kept a level playing field (one they haven't sold off of course). Here are the figures.

Parking income				Above
				inflation
	Actual	Adjusted	Actual	Increase
Item	March 02	March 02	March 12	%
Parking tickets	2,584,507	3,825,070	7,090,785	85%
Permits	211,290	312,709	1,228,592	293%
Paid for parking	1,021,678	1,512,083	3,793,484	151%
Costs	2,020,075	2,989,711	6,050,320	102%
Surplus	1,797,400	2,660,152	6,062,541	128%
Bus Lanes	0	estimated	1,200,000

Just to make sure you follow the numbers. If Barnet Council had been even-handed they would "only" collect £3.8 million this year from penalty charge notices (parking tickets to you and me). Instead they will rake in £7 million. This is what is squeezing the life out of the High Street. The council have upped the ticket issue rate, probably by employing more traffic wardens (to use their old familiar name) who are also more eager to dish out tickets due to the pressure they are placed under (Mr Mustard does not blame the wardens although he would rather they didn't cheat). Barnet Council are taking an extra £3.2 million out of the pockets of motorists which could go into the tills of local traders and make our High Streets more vibrant. 

The solution is to decrease the number of traffic wardens from the current 50 or so (does North Finchley really need 5 who seem to station themselves outside Cafe Buzz? - and Mr Mustard is often inside watching!) and reduce their number pro-rata down to 27 and then the same level of parking ticket income would be achieved.

Now it is when we get to permits that the real steal has occurred and it was one of the reasons why Mr Mustard started blogging. Prices have almost been trebled in real terms. This is a consequence of Mr Mustard's annual permit increasing steadily in price from £20 to £40 to £100 and also due to the cost of business permits being hiked. We are being right royally ripped off. 

The solution is easy. Go back to £40 for the first permit. There is no administrative justification for it to cost more. The CPZ was sold to us in about 1998 on the basis that it would only cover its costs. Poppycock. (Mr Mustard remembers an A4 card covered glossy brochure with a fold-out map being produced for the Chipping Barnet zone. If you are a hoarder please hunt it out as Mr Mustard would like to have a copy for proof of the basis of the introduction of the CPZ.)

Paid for parking has seen another increase of 151% above inflation. I do hope that Cllr Dean Cohen is not going to have another little tinker with pricing like Cllr Richard Cornelius did before him. It is not enough, it is not equitable and Mr Mustard is sending his findings to Uncle Eric (really The Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP and not Mr Mustard's real uncle). To get back to parity the hourly rate should be 80p. Then once you have done that Mr Mustard will ask you what you have done Dean to actually help the High St because at 80p an hour the answer will be nothing, you will neither have helped nor hindered. Being a Cabinet member is going to get very pressurised for you.

Costs have doubled above the rate of inflation. They have increased faster than the parking tickets can be issued which simply shows that as the number of tickets increases the willingness to pay them diminishes. The administrative cost of issuing permits are unrelated to permit face values so the costs must all be to do with parking tickets. If the number of parking tickets was decreased then the number of back office staff could also be decreased; they might even have time to read your letters, the ones where you advance perfectly valid reasons that any compassionate person would accept.

As to the surplus which in any other situation would be called profit that has more than doubled, if you want any proof then it is here, from the surplus that you can see, that over the last decade the motorist has simply been used as a cash cow. Profit has gone from less than £3 million to over £6 million.

Bus lane income didn't exist in 2002 but it has been shown as part of the cost relates to that new revenue stream. Over a £1 million from one little stretch of road. Just stay out of the bus lane and stay out of trouble.

Vexation

Now here, whilst Mr Mustard is writing, is a funny thing.

On 1 October he asked for a breakdown of the income streams and costs of the Special Parking Account (SPA). His request was rejected on 16 October 20102 as being vexatious. Mr Mustard now has a score (that's 20 to you) of emails which say that his last 20 questions are vexatious.

By coincidence another person asked on 1 October for details of the Special Parking Account, and other information.

On 29 October they received their reply about the SPA without any mention of their request being vexatious.

Mr Mustard is starting to think that it is him who is considered as vexatious and not the question as otherwise why was his question refused and the other one answered. Not because he is a blogger surely, as that would be contrary to the FOI Act.

Conclusion

The conclusion that Mr Mustard draws is that we don't need income from car parking. If all pay by phone bays (except car parks where it makes sense) were converted into 30, 60, 120 and 240 minutes free bays there would be no need to install parking meters and motorists would be easily able to come and go from town centres and they would thrive. As the majority of the income comes from parking contraventions they would continue as before and more people in town centres = more scope for tickets to be issued.

So forget the £2 per hour, make all on-street parking free and then only those guilty of an offence will have to pay and shoppers will return in their hordes to the High St.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Park yourselves Councillors and listen

Friern Barnet Photo Archive

as you had to do because having generated a petition with 13,000 signatures the constitution says so. Here is the speech delivered by Helen Michael, the doyenne of the (in particular) North Finchley traders who have dared to stand up and have their voice heard.

I have been a resident in Barnet for over 20 years and I have owned a business here for over 6 years.

Despite the downturn in the economy, I and the other traders were able to run our businesses on a break even basis.

In November 2011 Barnet Council introduced a parking regime without any consultation with traders or residents, increasing the parking  charges by 70%, higher than any other borough and more expensive than Islington, Camden and Westminster.

If I, as an example were to increase my prices by 70% overnight, I would find that my customers would go elsewhere.  This is what has happened to our town centres.

Furthermore, the pay by phone system gives no other choice.  It can be unworkable and your scratch cards are elusive.

Barnet Council has united the whole borough in the issue of the parking.  The other traders and I  can identify to the day our downturn in business to when our meters were removed.

As a result of the strong feelings amongst traders and residents and comments made to us by the public, who are no longer able to pop to Finchley for a newspaper, coffee, sweets or to meet friends without being charge extortionately for the visit.  The traders in Barnet, North Finchley and I prepared a poster campaign and petition.  Over 25 local businesses signed the petition and as you know almost 13,000 members of the public signed the petition supporting our cause.  Most were outraged, some incredulous that Barnet Council could be so short sighted and insensitive to the needs of its traders and residents and more importantly so  undemocratic.

Almost all had concerns about the cost of the parking in our town centres. Others had concerns about standing in the street with mobile phones and credit cards in hand. There is of course an issue regarding the elderly ,the hard of hearing and vulnerable members of our society. A large proportion of people do not feel comfortable registering their details.

As a public facing business who speaks to people from all walks of life on a daily basis, I meet hundreds of people  who share our concerns about the dying high street.  Instead of the Council encouraging shoppers to visit the high street, you are encouraging people to Brent Cross who spend a fortune advertising free parking.

Our car parks now stand empty . Our children play football in the Lodge lane car park and I believe there is dogging in the carp park by Poundland as it is so underused.

The other traders and I suspect the revenue collected from parking has taking a nose dive.  This is obvious to anyone  monitoring the use of the car park sand the parking bays which are now empty, where they were previously  over subscribed.  I am sure that this is the reason why the Council is so reluctant despite repeated requests to furnish us with the revenue figures,. This parking system has been a failure from start to finish for locals, parking traffic and traders.   Even more so for the tax payer whose assets are not being realised to its full potential. If the Council can’t get the parking right, what hope is there with the One Barnet Programmes.

Contrast the council car parks with the Spires in Barnet.  A privately owned car park who  made a proactive commercial decision to cut their charges in order to encourage shoppers/businesses which has a been a roaring success and it is now very difficult to get a space both at weekends and during the week. They still operate cash meter which is commercially viable unlike the Council car parks which are seriously under subscribed.

To date I have attended about 9 Council run meetings regarding our town centres.  I  have been interviewed on national TV and until this came along the only positive action take  by Barnet Council was a visit from the Police regarding our poster. Not satisfied with the local constabulary paying me a visit in the first instant,  Barnet Council have insisted that I be interviewed by the anti terrorist squad of New Scotland Yard. Two trips by two high ranking officers and a two hour  interview, two weeks from the Olympics. Need I say more…

A review is now being undertaken some nine months after the Council introduced this system and the funding from this is from the Outer London Fund.  Surely this matter can be better spent on the High Road.   Note from the questionnaire it does not ask  the traders about the change in turnover, nor the parking needs of their customers, nor what percentage of their customers come by car.

The Council have been aware of the issues regarding their parking regime from the outset.  You have accepted that there is a major problem and we have given you several alternative solutions which will not only benefit the council, but may also help local businesses stay in business in these difficult times, providing we can entice people back to our high roads all of which  have been ignored.

I have visited both East Finchley and Finchley town centres. The parking controls on the side streets appear to be for only one hour per day.   In North Finchley parking controls run all day for the whole of the day.  I notice that both Finchley Central and East Finchley have regenerated themselves, whereas North Finchley is in serious decline. This has got to  be as a direct result of a very expensive parking charges in North Finchley. There is no station around the High Road, North Finchley, so there is no issue regarding commuters.

The questions I wish to have answered on behalf of the Traders are:

How much is this survey costing?

Why is there such a discrepancy between Whetstone, East Finchley, Finchley Central and north Finchley?

The parking revenue, both before and after the parking was introduced for 10 months either side?

The traders want to be involved in any consultation and decision making in advance of any  changes and perhaps a trader or two could sit on the committee. The London Borough of Barnet is struggling.  What is their timetable for review and action. Dean Cohen has suggested 50p for 15 minutes.  Does he think he is doing us a favour.? There is concession for that. It is still £2.00 per hour, far too expensive. We would urge the Council to give shoppers half an hour free parking in order to entice people back to the high road. It seems like it is a foregone conclusion as he still wants to charge 50p for 15 minutes.

How much did it cost to rip out our meters?

Businesses are seriously struggling and some cannot wait a year for something to be done. We need a date when any changes are going to be implemented.

We need your assurances in future that anyone involved in supporting campaigns will not be harassed by the Police opposing Council policies.

Mr Mustard did not make it to Tuesday's full Council meeting at which this fine speech was delivered although he has seen the film. It was slightly cut short at the end by a flustered looking Councillor Richard Cornelius who, like the biased referee at a fairground boxing match, cuts the round short when his man is losing. Your administration are all looking a bit punch drunk at the moment though aren't they? We are only in about round 3 of the One Barnet boxing match and the opposition keeps getting stronger, has lots of energy left to taunt you and is showing every sign of being still standing at the end of Round 10 whilst team One Barnet will be out cold.

Time to take up golf maybe Richard?

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

What the High Street is up against

The following poster shows you the charges for the car parks that are within 100m of Chipping Barnet High Street. They are the car parks that shoppers have to use if they can't find a space on the High Street itself which is likely as the number of spaces is not that great.

Sensible shoppers will go into the Spires Car Park as it is cheaper or park on Hadley Common in the afternoons when the restrictions are off.

Just look at the price though. As soon as 90mins have gone you are in for a fiver. £5 for 91 minutes, ridiculous.

If you have only a few things to buy and are going Cricklewood way you are only about 2 miles from Westfield.

Here is the Westfield parking tariff for the first 2 hours of your stay. 

You can see the attraction can't you ( Mr Mustard can't see the attraction of shopping except for new motorbikes but he realises that other people like this sort of thing). Mr Mustard wants a thriving High Street. The council needs to play its part in ensuring this is the case by providing plenty of reasonably priced parking spaces.

Even if you stay a little longer you can get 3 hours parking for your £5. There are 3,066 available spaces at Westfield at this moment and zero chance of getting a PCN and payment is made into a nice machine.

Barnet Council car parks don't look competitive to Mr Mustard.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard