Westminster City Council's proposed charges for Evening and Sunday Parking.
Westminster Council have now announced that the twice postponed new evening and weekend parking charges are to be abandoned. The Council have come under increasing pressure over the last few months, in particular from west end businesses, the Evening Standard and even the Mayor of London over their proposed plans which we have outlined in previous newsletters.
The charges were originally to be introduced last December. This was then postponed until this January so as not to upset pre-Christmas trading. This however gave opponents of the scheme time to muster their resources and launch a legal challenge to the scheme. This they duly did and implementation was further put back until March pending the hearing of a judicial review. Later it was decided that this would be too close the Olympic Games and the charges were further postponed to a date to be announced after these had finished. By this time Westminster were beginning to look distinctly wrong footed by the whole thing, the furore had finally proved a little too much for them it seems. The Chief Executive has now announced his early retirement as well as the scrapping of the proposed charges, the two events are not connected, we are told.
Of course, as we have frequently mentioned, the Marylebone Area was never threatened with evening charges. Our area was to have Sunday charging only, it was only to be in the southern part and only between 1pm and 6pm. This we always supported as there is a very real issue with congestion on Sunday afternoons and this is still an issue that many residents are unhappy with and would like to see addressed. How improvements can be effected without a charging regime is hard to see. Provided there is an exemption for permit holders to park in metered bays free of charge during any restricted hours on Sundays we are still of the opinion that Westminster's proposals would have resulted in a very worthwhile improvement to the area on Sundays. Whether this would have been the case is not something that we are now likely to find out at any time in the near future.
One small improvement has however been implemented and that is conversion of many junctions in the F zone south area to double yellow lines. This should prevent the parking of cars on street corners which causes increased congestion and obstructs sight lines and is particularly prevalent on Sundays. There is still a need for an increase in the number of Residents or Shared Use bays in some areas of Marylebone and this we are actively pursuing with the council.
Michael Bolt, Chair Traffic & City Management, The Marylebone Association
