New cpz charges!

edited January 2011 in Local discussion
I have just been told that this year my Islington cpz charge has gone up by £100 !!! I still drive the same car as last year but they have just told me co2 emissions and the new roaming pass is why I must pay extra.

Oh well.... Will have to park on the Haringey side now, just to prove a point of not paying!!!!
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Comments

  • edited 10:25AM
    Maybe you could also make savings by reducing unnecessary wear and tear on the exclamation mark?
  • edited 10:25AM
    @ Sparkyley. Looks like i will have to pay out an extra £120. I'm not going to let this one go without some sort of official response from the council. Cuts do not mean put up the taxes, it means do better with less. Lazy, useless gits.

    Plus, never really had a problem with additional exclamation marks. Certainly not to the extent where its the only thing i can say on a thread.
  • edited 10:25AM
    Is that £120 per car?(!)
  • edited 10:25AM
    Refugees from Islington's all embracing CPZs are the reason (well one of the reasons) that Haringey has CPZs too. Those of us who live in the further (or should it be the nether) regions of Stroud Green N8 - yes it does exist - are dreading the yet further extensions of Haringey's CPZs in a sort of pincer movement so that eventually London will be one great field of CPZ from the river to Ally Pally. Keep to your own side if you know what's good for you is all I'll say!
  • AliAli
    edited 10:25AM
    Surely the co2 emissions will increase as people will now be able to park anywhere in Islington so will now drive up and down the “thin” borough to take advantage. Does this mean that you could drive from SG and park up say near to Iron Monger Row baths and walk into the City or have a misunderstood it ? It must also impact council revenues as they will not be able to charge extra fro parking outside your “home” zone as now. They have probably added up all the losses through going borough wide and are getting them back through the higher charges.
  • edited 10:25AM
    Note to Kevin O'Leary. Director bloke who sent the letter. Got an acknowledgement this time after sending, so will update if there are any responses.

    Part 1 of 2

    Kevin,
    What are the primary objectives of CPZ's in Islington?
    According to you its....
    *ensure our roads are safe
    *enable traffic to flow freely
    *give residents and local businesses priority over commuters
    *provide parking for disabled people and health care workers
    *ensure that the parking rules are enforced using common sense
    In my view, its to control the number of stationary vehicles in the locality with a strong bias towards local residents and businesses. Ensuring they can go about their everyday life and business without interference from non-residents. After all, their council tax and permit revenues are spent in their area.
    There doesn't seem to be a massive disconnect between my views and the your own, so why am i absolutely raging about your parking policies?
    All residents would see a CPZ as a benefit to them and would be happy to contribute to a level that covers the administration of the scheme. With new permit prices now issued and accounts published for income and expenditure, i feel you have to justify yourselves.

    You have full knowledge of what cars are registered to the area, which also shows you the best possible way you can supposedly generate income. When you look at the scales of emissions versus the jump in costs it is very apparent that its been set-up to maximise revenues. I propose that the "green" angle by which CO2 emissions and engine size determine payment, are more a means to charge rather than a means to encourage a change in behaviour. Given that cars depreciate greatly, the financial incentive to sell up and get a smaller, greener car, do not equal the benefits via the parking scheme. i.e. its cheaper to keep your existing car and pay than take a hit on the value of your car and a cheaper permit.......and i think you know that. Your research shows we can't respond......do not PUSH people on an agenda that is unachievable or hide behind it. Are all council cars electric cars? they should be if you want us to take you seriously.

    Overall income/expenditure issues
    My biggest grievance relates to your accounts. In 2009/10 you showed almost a £5m surplus. Permits and vouchers accounted for only 23% of your total income. You got most of it from your army of enforcers who raked in a cool £11m, Pay and Display £6.5m etc. The vast majority of your income comes from non-residents, and so it should. So why the massive hike in permit costs? We live here, have rights within our area. You should be protecting us, not taxing us more. Its vehicles in transit through Islington that cause pollution, not residents. You had a surplus but rather than look after us, you took it upon yourselves to spend it on "highway improvements" and "transport planning". Filling gaps in budgets in other divisions is not how my parking permit money should be spent. Do not assume that because we live in Islington and are car owners that we are affluent and are happy to subsidise stuff that you think is a good idea. Look at the role of the CPZ, and ask how its revenues should be allocated. Also, since its possible to itemise your income, you should be able to do so for expenditure. Its ommission from the accounts suggests that you are embarassed to publish it. I suspect the vast majority is on enforcement, which would make a fantastic newspaper headline....hence, no detail.
  • edited 10:25AM
    Part 2

    Consultation timings
    I also take issue with the timings of the "consultation". 10th through to 31st of December, possibly the busiest time of the year for most, with a large majority leaving the borough for xmas. For the "consultation" to truly be a consultation you would build in a greater response time to the outcomes, rather than have a 31st Jan start date. I propose that you have ticked a box to say that you told people when in actual fact you never had any intention of listening to peoples concerns, suggestions and issues.
    Roaming
    While i'm not negatively affected by this (in actual fact positively), those residents living in IS-Z can have any IS permit come and stay in their area for the whole day. Given that the area is close to Archway tube, i'm sure this will mean that people can now drive up and park and hop on the northern line for work. Great for me, but what about those local residents who you should be protecting! I wonder what will happen in some areas when Arsenal play at home too.
    Overall, i just think you're just taking advantage of residents. We have no choice unless we want to get a mass of parking tickets. We have made our homes here, we pay income tax, council tax, road tax, VAT, fuel duty, congestion charge, national insurance, inheritance tax, capital gains tax............and now also.......an inflated tax to park a car outside our own house. Start doing your job properly and get back to looking after your residents, rather than being lazy and automatically taking more from us and hiding behind so called green agendas. Just because you've been asked to make some cuts, does not mean that you automatically come to me and just ask for more money. Lazy, lazy, lazy.

    This will be 4th note on parking without a response from your teams, perhaps you can take that into account when you publish your pointless self-serving KPI's. I'll put this on www.stroudgreen.org too and you can follow the debate there, by the looks of things the local papers enjoy lifting stories from there anyway.
  • Starts off well. Inciting incident works. 2nd act drags on a bit, though, and by the climax I'd gone beyond caring about the protagonist. Needs a car chase or an explosion at the end. Good effort, though. :)
  • edited 10:25AM
    I would have read you rant but I live in the Peoples Republic of Harringay. My bike is zero rated on emissions and parking charges.
  • edited 10:25AM
    My car, on the other hand..............
  • edited 10:25AM
    Will have to park down the road, found a 10am-2pm mon to fri only. YAY! Means I will have to drive around stroud greenbetween these hours, this doesn't look good.
  • edited 10:25AM
    But i will not bloody pay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
  • edited 10:25AM
    Brodie, for the most part I think that's a damn good letter. But you could have Shakespeare himself writing to the grasping bastards and I fear it would achieve the same result, ie, at best a load of flannel failing to adequately address any of the points raised, and then another hike next year.
  • edited 10:25AM
    It always happens doesn't it, you have one bunch of halfwitted sharks running the council, they get voted out and the new bunch turn out to be even more halfwitted and sharky. Although, the blame probably lies at the feet of the consistently halfwitted and sharky council officers. Personally, if I was a councillor - including the ones that hang out here sometimes - I'd be very embarassed about having to put my name to these extortionate parking charges and cretinous green argument that a seven-year-old could see through.
  • edited 10:25AM
    I know its very long but once i got going i couldn't stop! On A4 it doesn't look so bad.

    @ADGS. Thanks. I know it won't change anything, but i just wanted them to know that we're not a load of muppets, we do know what they're doing, and that i think they're useless. At the very least, i'm sure it will have annoyed them. Part of me wants everyone to get an electric car so that £5m quid leaves the budget.
  • AliAli
    edited 10:25AM
    Maybe you should look at this at a higher level. You’re probably right in that this is driven by a perceived need to fill budget cuts from the LibCon Government. This year I believe there is a 12% cut which equates to approx £30m. A lot of money I don’t think people should be complaining about the parking as this is only the start you aint seen nothing yet ! Quite crafty of the LibCons to cut the council money and let the Councils take the blame etc! I have heard that the Ecology Centre at Gillespie Road is about to be decimated on the staffing front. I wonder how many libraries are going to be closed and have their opening hours reduced. Also look out for the education cuts that are about to be imposed on the west side of Haringey. Get ready to march on Westminster and role on more by-elections. If there is a General Election tomorrow Labour will have an overall majority of 48
  • edited 10:25AM
    Cut = decreased budget
    As in you won't have the same funding as before, so don't do as much.
    Cut does not mean find funds from somewhere else to fill a gap.

    Same lazy attitude that got us into the mess....someone else has to pay. "I don't have the skills or intelligence to get projects and initiatives away without saying i need more resource"...what a load of tosh.

    Even if labour had won the election, i gaurantee i would be receiving the same letters so the libcon argument is pointless.

    Congratulations to Labouur for winning a popularity contest in an environment of cuts and general depression. Didn't see that one coming at all. Well done them.

    Anyway, anymore parking comments or do we need to move over to the all purpose political thread before everyone else gets bored?
  • edited 10:25AM
    Speaking purely selfishly as a non car owner I don't understand why, with so little space and so many car owners, people expect to be able to park outside their flats or houses or indeed even in their own street. A car is a luxury item and really I don't see why any of my council tax money should be spent on subsidising people's parking.
  • edited 10:25AM
    In my case, my car allows me to do my job. Its not a luxury.
    I hope your tax isn't paying for parking either, it should all come via the scheme and its participants.
  • edited January 2011
    Most people wouldn't see car ownership as a luxury.

    In economics terms, demand for owning a car is likely to be very inelastic - you either need one or you don't. People who need one, need one. On top of that, parking in Islington is more or less a monopsony - there is only one seller of on-street parking in the borough.

    So i) people need cars and ii) they can't buy parking from anyone else. This gives you a situation where the council can push up prices and the consumer can't do anything about it. In most situations like this, you have a regulator (like in gas and electricity), but this doesn't happen with parking. On top of that the council doesn't have many types of income where it can raise money with such loose oversight, so the temptation is irresistible.

    As a result, parking fees and fines are massively profitable and likely to be subsidising other parts of the council.
  • edited 10:25AM
    I agree with Miss Annie. A car is a luxury and you should expect to have to pay for it. If you need it for your job, your employer should pay for it.
  • edited 10:25AM
    Not sure on the suggestion council tax subsidises people parking outside their home... The figures already show Islington turns a tasty profit on parking and do people parking their cars outside their house even bring a cost needed to be paid with by council taxpayer cash? If you wander around the streets and look at the number of cars there does actually appear to be plenty of room to park for residents, apart from those roads where the councils have caused CPZ-clash-based chaos. CPZ's are essentially designed to stop those seeking to take advantage of an area's location at the expense of residents, ie almost entirely commuters. A simple way to run one is do staggered two-hour zones across the borough, starting at 9am, you could then use a smaller core team of parking attendants to stop commuters and cover the entire borough during a day across those staggered times. An additional small crack team could operate dispatched randomly to carry out on the spot checking for people contravening yellow lines etc. Thus huge saving on cost of running CPZs but with same benefit to residents and the council could instead focus on something more useful, improving parks and leisure facilities, mending pavements, filling in potholes, counting paperclips. Although this would obviously dent the current increasingly bloated self-serving parking regime industry that the councils are essentially in hock with.
  • edited 10:25AM
    Are we muddling up need with want again?
  • edited 10:25AM
    Join Streetcar :)
  • edited 10:25AM
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  • edited 10:25AM
    No-one 'needs' more than one set of clothes and an occasional glass of water. This is the logic of a victorian mill owner - you don't need days off, or worker's rights, or an education. Internet access, healthcare provision, mobile phones, pets. You don't really need any of these, really. What about taxis? Buses? Why not walk everywhere, barefoot?

    Things are often called luxuries by people who don't use them. Splitting things into arbitrary needs and wants introduces a hair shirt self-righteousness into discussions like these.

    Remember, people who walk everywhere, barefoot, are better than you.
  • edited 10:25AM
    Andy's right, unless you strip it back that far need and want are subjective. Personally I both want and 'need' a car. The implications of not having one for my family and the extra hassle it would cause me and my wife with a small baby and stuff to cart about: occasionally locally and more often when visiting and staying with family in Hertfordshire and further afield make it in my view a need not a want. The subjectiveness is underlined by comaprison with say a reliable tube service, for example, which many would consider a need, but me just a want, because I cycle to work and don't see why everyone else in London doesn't do the same. Regardless of the need want argument which is pointless and could go round and round forever, the real problem is when setting up CPZs and making charges dependent on emmissions and consulting on them the councils trot out lines on helping residents and improving life for them and their parking needs. The documents do not say: Do you think a car is a luxury and you should expect to have to pay for it and we should use them as a cash cow? The responses might prove slightly different if they did.
  • AliAli
    edited 10:25AM
    Haringey has been using emissions for there charging for quite some time. It is down to the rates of charge not emission as it is still fairly cheap on the Haringey side but I bet that changes next year for the same reasons i have already mentioned. <http://www.greenn8.org/cpz/cpz-green-or-greed.html>; I thought Andy’ s comments: “ This is the logic of a victorian mill owner - you don't need days off, or worker's rights, or an education. Internet access, healthcare provision, mobile phones, pets. You don't really need any of these, really” kind of predict that in fact a lot of the publically provided “necessities” may be watered down, disappear or be charged for at a great rate. It has started on Workers rights and Education I predict Healthcare provision is next
  • edited 10:25AM
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  • edited 10:25AM
    @andy People who walk everywhere naked and barefoot are the real heroes. Sadly it's still a bit too nippy for that kind of thing.
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