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The following letter was sent to some of the residents of the Curnock Street Estate. The original document can be found on this link. |
Environment and Transport
Culture and Environment
London Borough of Camden
Town Hall Extension
Argyle Street
WC1H8EQ
wvwv.camden.gov.uk
Date: 11 January 2013
Tel: 020 7974 4639
Email: charlie.parishQjcamden.qov.uk
Goldthorpe
Camden Street
London NW1
Dear resident
Re: Consultation on Controlled Parking Zones (CPZs)
Camden Council wants to know if you think the Controlled Parking Zone (CPZ) hours in your zone (CA-F, Camden Town) should change.
Why are we consulting?
As part of the Council’s Parking Policy Review (PPR) during summer 2012 we canvassed views about days and hours of parking control borough-wide. For more information about the PPR please go to www.camden.gov.uk/cpzreview.
This engagement exercise was aimed at local community groups, although individuals were also able to respond. The intention was to establish whether there were issues about controlled hours in particular CPZs that warranted the Council conducting a full consultation of the CPZs concerned through its CPZ review programme. Based on the results of this exercise (available at www.camden.gov.uk/cpzreview) we are now holding a full postal and online consultation in some CPZs, including CA-F, to gauge views on specific proposals.
Please read all the information in this booklet, answering all questions as you go along. When you have completed the questionnaire, please return it by Monday 11 February 2013 using the freepost envelope provided. The consultation is also available online at: https://consultations.wearecamden.org/
Yours sincerely
Charlie Parish
Principle transport planner
Parking in Camden
Camden is a dense mix of residential, business and other uses. This mix is part of what makes Camden a good place to live. The success of the local economy provides local services and employment opportunities.
However, the wide range of demands for parking space means there is a need to strike a Palance between residents, visitors and businesses (and others) sharing the limited parking space available. Traffic and parking requirements change, and ongoing changes are necessary to guarantee that arrangements can effectively meet local needs.
The whole of the public road network in Camden is subject to parking controls. This process was completed in August 2004, when the last Controlled Parking Zone (CPZ) was introduced. This is in contrast to the situation ten years prior, when less than half the borough was included within CPZs. All the more recent CPZs were implemented following extensive public consultation exercises and with the majority support of residents based on preferred hours and days of control.
Parking occupancy surveys carried out after the more recent CPZs were implemented showed that the introduction of CPZs in Camden resulted in considerable reductions in the numbers of cars parking in the new zones. Residents surveyed also indicated that the new CPZs had made it easier to park and to park closer to home. This has also contributed towards reductions in motor traffic in the borough that are observed in our annual traffic counts.
More information on the history of Council’s CPZ programme is available at: camden.gov.uk/pep
It is important to bear in mind why the borough manages parking in the first place. Demand for parking in Camden far outstrips the supply of kerb space available and the Council seeks to maintain an active balance between the parking demands of different groups of people. This also needs to be balanced with the statutory duty on the Council to keep traffic moving, avoiding unsafe and obstructive parking, and to make sure there is good access for pedestrians, cyclists, buses and vehicles of all sorts.
Alongside this is the strong aim of sustainability, and restraining non-essential traffic so that we achieve efficient movements for essential vehicles (e.g. emergency services, public transport and deliveries). In a crowded inner city location we encourage people to move in the most efficient and sustainable ways possible and to help achieve this we improve conditions for walking and cycling, including making these movements safer, and improve the flow of public transport. This also has clear links to minimising the wider impacts of traffic on poor air quality and climate change.
Most households in Camden do not have access to a car, but parking controls impact upon everybody. We would urge all residents and businesses to give us your views on the appropriate arrangements for your area.
Information below shows how the numbers of Penalty Charge Notices (PCNs – parking and traffic fines) is falling year on year. It’s important to note that any surplus that authorities make through their parking account must be spent on certain categories allowed by law. These include the cost of providing and maintaining parking facilities, highways improvement schemes, highway maintenance, public passenger transport services and certain other categories including the Freedom Pass.
Changing behaviours
There is evidence that attitudes and behaviours are changing. For example, there has been a steady decrease in the total number of PCNs issued in the past five years (see table 1), reflecting increased compliance with regulations.
Table 1 Total PCNs issued by Camden Council
Financial year
2007/8 529,874
2008/9 419,666
2009/10 399,712
2010/11 350,490
2011/12 330,762
Another encouraging sign of changing behaviour is the slight fall in resident permit numbers in recent years and hence consequential reduction of parking pressures on street. This is possibly due to motorists turning to alternative modes of transport, such as walking, cycling and using the increasing number of car club vehicles available.
The Council is keen to encourage car clubs that offer a ‘pay-as-you-drive’ alternative to owning a car. For users this usually provides a cheaper and more convenient way of using a car without the burden of maintaining a vehicle. Car club vehicles are parked in designated bays and can be used for an hour, day or all weekend.
The 2011/12 Carplus Annual Members Report for London looked at the travel behaviour of 5,585 London car club members and 1,901 joiners across all operators. It was reported that 27.5% of members sold a car as a direct result of joining a car club and each car club vehicle is estimated to remove between 15 and 20 private vehicles off the road.
Some households may also join a car club as an alternative to buying a second car. Usage of public transport is also higher with car club members when compared to the London average.
For more information on this, and our offer giving you the chance to exchange your residents’ parking permit for a year’s free car club membership and £50 worth of drive hours, please go to http://www.camden.gov.uk/carclubs .
CA-F, Camden Town Controlled Parking Zone (CPZ)
A map of Camden’s controlled parking zones can be found on camden.gov.uk/cpz
In the Camden Town CPZ currently the hours of control vary across the zone according to sub-areas as follows:
The hours and days of operation of CPZs in the borough are tailored to the needs of a particular area. It is possible that controlled hours may be different in sub-areas of a zone, as is the case with CA-F currently.
There are advantages and disadvantages to shorter or longer hours of control that respondents will need to consider before answering the questions below.
You may wish to extend the CPZ hours to discourage visitors to the many entertainment venues in the area from arriving by car and parking in local streets. This may make it easier for a resident permit holder to park. However, there are a number of issues to be considered before opting to extend the current CPZ times.
For example, if you have visitors in the evening please consider their parking arrangements if longer hours were introduced. If evening controls were extended, visitors arriving before the end of controlled hours could use pay and display bays or use Visitor Permits in residents’ bays – which could be less convenient.
2012 CPZ engagement exercise -summary results for CA-F, Camden Town
Respondents were asked about what they thought about the length of controlled hours. The results of the summer 2012 CPZ engagement exercise are as follows:
