If like me you have to pay for two car parking permits in Barnet, you are about to receive a nasty shock. Instead of paying £70 for the first permit and £40 for the second, for the privelidge of parking outside your own house for one hour a day, you will now be paying £200. The man who has imposed the 90% tax increase on me is Councillor Brian Coleman, self styled friend of the motorist.
This is a totally arbitrary tax. It will result in more of the few remaining front gardens in Barnet being concreted over. Not only that, but many free parking bays are being removed penalising commuters.
Remember the culprit - Brian Coleman, when you vote in the GLA elections
2 comments:
That is probably to raise the funds they need to fill in the potholes in the borough, saw they are starting work on Monday at Millway.
Hi,
As far as I can tell this proposal is unlawful and contrary to statute. As local authorities are creatures of statute they may only do that that is prescribed by statute.
When administering permit parking schemes a local authority may only pass on to the permit holders (residents and businesses) the cost of administering the scheme itself, that is why for example a second permit is cheaper than the first.
It is prohibited from making a profit from the scheme.
To jack up the prices this much for issuing bits of paper for one's windscreen can only be either to make money or their operations have become totally inefficient, their costs cannot have increased to this extent in my view.
As I have stated they may not use permit parking schemes as a fiscal measure.
I strongly recommend that you engage with an organisation like the Association of British Drivers (Roger Lawson leads the London area) to campaign against this.
I urge you to object stating what I have put above to the Chief Executive of Barnet and to their legal department. If they then continue with this scheme they will at the very least be guilty of maladministration (or even possibly misfeasance in a public office if they wilfully ignore statute when they know what they are doing is unlawful) in my view.
If they ignore you and proceed they will leave themselves open to serious complaints to the Local Government Ombudsman and to the District Auditor, the latter of which will be unable to sign off the accounts due to a complaint of unlawful items of revenue on the accounts. In fact you could get to the DA early and warn him/her that that is what Barnet plans.
I also suggest that you contact the Department for Transport (even the SoS) and the Rt. Hon. Eric Pickles MP who may well intervene or contact other people on your behalf.
Good luck.
Post a Comment