Croydon Council has started a consultation on its new residents parking strategy. They are proposing to introduce emission-based charges for resident and business parking permits, to all controlled parking permit zones within the borough.
Under the proposals electric car owners would pay only £6.50 for an annual resident’s parking permit. However any cars made before 2001 would see residents pay £300 a year compared to the current resident’s permit of £80.
These ‘green’ proposals would see the poorest in the borough punished for not being able to afford new cars, and punished for not being able to afford off street parking in the London property market. This comes on top of another 5% council tax increase, paying for some of London’s most expensive councillors and their weekend entertainment. It’s not even clear that scraping old cars for new is environmentally friendly.
If these proposals are accepted, hardworking families will face extra financial pressure for residents’ parking permits. Cars are often needed to drop young children off at school, before carrying on the work to pay rent or a mortgage on small properties that can be worth 10 times the average income of the area. Of course this problem disappears for the owners of larger properties with their own off street parking.
We are asking Croydon residents to object to the proposal on the online survey, and help keep residents’ parking affordable. Further details are available at https://getinvolved.croydon.gov.uk/project/566 with the survey at https://getinvolved.croydon.gov.uk/kms/elab.aspx?CampaignId=857&noip=1. The survey runs until midnight, Thursday 20 June.
Are Croydon trying to gentrify out the working class from the borough? Who knows. We do however know Croydon Council is once again acting for the few not the many.
Croydon Constitutionalists