Release date: 18/03/2010
By: Charlie Masson Smith
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Lords deal blow to Richmond Park plan
The Government's controversial plans to introduce parking charges in Richmond Park have suffered a setback after peers in the House of Lords backed a motion calling on ministers to have a rethink.
The motion was passed by 136 votes to 71 after winning cross-party support and reflects widespread opposition to the plans.
Wandsworth Council leader Edward Lister said the vote was a clear signal to culture minister Margaret Hodge that she should abandon the scheme.
He said: "It is actually quite rare for the Government to suffer a reversal in the House of Lords so this defeat highlights the depth of opposition that exists to this idea.
"The simple fact is that introducing charges for parking will deter many people from visiting Richmond Park, especially those on low incomes.
"The lack of public transport into the park means that most people have no option but to drive. There is simply no alternative for pensioners and families with young children. Meanwhile adjoining residential areas like Roehampton will inevitably suffer overspill parking from drivers who don't want to pay.
"It is not too late for Mrs Hodge to abandon these proposals. They were ill-thought out from the start and nothing we have seen or heard since then has changed our opinion."
Mrs Hodge announced in January that she was approving the introduction of charges. In her letter announcing the decision, she stated that people in south west London are rich enough to afford them.
She dismissed out of hand the argument that charges would deter people on lower incomes from visiting the park – basing her decision on research which suggests that only the wealthy visit the park.
She wrote: "There is nothing to suggest that poorer communities will be unfairly penalised.
Indeed..…a disproportionate number of people from higher social groups both visit the parks and bring their cars.
"In Richmond Park 88 per cent of those using the car parks were in the ABCI socio economic group…..there is nothing to suggest that the imposition of charges, particularly at the levels proposed, cannot be afforded by those who use the parks."
Mrs Hodge also dismissed concerns that the charges would lead to overspill parking in residential areas bordering the park and offered no concrete proposals to improve public transport provision.
However an examination of the evidence compiled by the Royal Parks Agency, the quango that manages the park, challenges the view that only the rich visit the park.
A report by the RPA's own transport consultants stated that the highest proportion of vehicles using the car parks in Richmond Park are more than ten years old.
They found that 18 per cent of cars owned by visitors were at least ten years old. Forty per cent of vehicles in the car parks were at least seven years old.
Only around 19 per cent of vehicles were prestige marques like BMW, Audi, Porsche or Mercedes. The rest were mostly the types of vehicles owned by middle income drivers with manufacturers Ford, Citroen, Toyota, Volkswagen, Renault, Honda, Peugeot, Nissan, Fiat and Vauxhall accounting for 60 per cent of visitors.
Fresh doubts have also emerged about the financial arguments used by the minister to justify her decision. She said that cash generated by the new charges would fund improvements to the car parks and road surfaces in the park.
But research shows that the estimated costs of implementing the scheme will amount to £2.7m. Parking revenue from visitors is expected to generate around £300,000 a year – so it could be a decade before there is any money available to pay for improvements to the park's infrastructure.
Over the course of its 13 week public consultation on the scheme last year, the RPA received 2,000 individual responses. It also received five petitions, containing approximately 13,000 signatures from those opposed to the charges, while two similar petitions placed on the Downing Street website attracted a total of 5,759 names
In total 84 per cent of those who took part in the consultation were against the proposals.
ENDS
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