Minutes:
(A) Payment Options for Parking
At the request of Councillor Julie Ireland and members of the Liberal Democrat Group, Councillor Nicholas Bennett, as Portfolio Holder for Transport, Highways and Road Safety, made a statement on payment options for parking in the light of the expectation of the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities that parking services should remain accessible.
The Portfolio Holder emphasised that the proposals had been supported by the Environment and Community Services PDS Committee at its meeting in November 2022. 92% of the UK population owned a smart-phone, but parking bays could still be booked using a land-line or an ordinary mobile phone. The Secretary of State was entitled to his opinion, but an Equalities Act impact assessment had been undertaken and independently assessed by an officer from Adult Social Care, and the changeover to a cashless system was found to be compliant.
In response to questions, the Portfolio Holder stated that he would be prepared to respond to questions about the impact of the changes and emphasised that as car parks were never full it should be easy to book a place via a land-line. He had received 25 complaints about this, all on email, so these people cannot have been digitally excluded. The report considered by the PDS Committee had covered the experiences of other councils in bringing in similar policies; for example, the cost of providing opportunities to buy parking in a shop in Southwark was more expensive than the income raised. The option of retaining a small number of card payment machines had been considered at the PDS Committee meeting and rejected. The Portfolio Holder confirmed that the Council was not a monopoly supplier of car parks.
At the request of Councillors Jeremy Adams and Simon Jeal, Councillor Nicholas Bennett, as Portfolio Holder for Transport, Highways and Road Safety, made a statement on increases in parking charges.
The Portfolio Holder explained that charges had risen by 20 pence, with a service charge of 20 pence for Ring-go. The increase was the first for four years, and had been supported by the Environment and Community Services PDS Committee at its November meeting. Parking income was an important part of the Council’s revenue.
In response to questions, the Portfolio Holder stated that on-street parking charges were considerably higher in neighbouring boroughs such as Greenwich, Lambeth and Southwark – Bromley had probably the lowest parking charges in London. He also stated that officers did take into account circumstances such as motorists making genuine mistakes and not being able to receive signal and could waive fines.
(C) Potholes
At the request of Councillor Julie Ireland and members of the Liberal Democrat Group, Councillor Nicholas Bennett, as Portfolio Holder for Transport, Highways and Road Safety, made a statement on potholes.
The Portfolio Holder stated that it was not an appropriate use of the statements process to produce the detailed statistical information that had been requested, but referred members to the detailed answer he had given recently to a question from Councillor Alison Stammers.
In response to questions, the Portfolio Holder stated that the Council’s contractor, Riney, had tried to get more staff to address potholes, but all highways authorities in the country were experiencing the same problems, so it was not possible to put more crews together. However, instead of stopping when the backlog was addressed, crews would continue working over the summer to be prepared for next winter. He accepted that the danger from pot-holes and failing temporary repairs was particularly acute for cyclists and motorcyclists, and he was determined that the problem should be brought under control over the summer. He did not have figures on insurance pay-outs to hand, but this could be obtained. He had to rely on the technical experts to prioritise repairs and to ensure that the correct materials were used. He was prepared to see whether it would be possible and useful to differentiate between temporary and permanent repairs on Fix My Street. He informed Members that the Council was carrying out repairs on the Principal Road Network in the borough, despite not receiving funding from the Mayor of London. The Portfolio Holder concluded by stating that if there was abnormal weather again next winter it was likely that the same problems would re-occur across the country. However ,there was a rolling programme of comprehensive re-surfacing, and 35 roads had been prioritised in the latest programme, scrutinised by the PDS Committee in March.