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THE PROPOSALS … RIP-OFF CHARGES AND SPIN ·
They weren’t spelt out in the weekly mailing,
(e.g. 11 Oct) for Hammersmith & Fulham Council (LBHF) which regularly
pushes a ‘Parking for Less’ message! Nor was it in the 2022 Manifesto,
which talked about ‘emissions-based
parking which will reduce parking fees for many residents’ and even ‘free parking for residents’
!!!! ·
Spin
warning! The
11 Oct mailing,
links to an article
with a disingenuous heading: ‘H&F considers first rise
in parking charges in over 10 years’. This
conveniently ‘forgets’ that Cllr Cowan hiked
up hourly parking charges during the pandemic and had to backtrack
when it became an election embarrassment.
·
For example. Permits for cars in popular Band 4 rise
from £119 to £230 (UP
93%) or UP by 189% to £345 if you have a diesel model (which we were told was ‘greener’
by Gordon Brown’s government). ·
If you are really unlucky, your permit could go up from
£119 to a massive £510 (UP 328%). ·
Second vehicle permits are three times the price of a single permit, calculated on the
dearer of the vehicles. This could reach a swingeing £1530 (UP 207%).
·
If you are rich enough to have a Zero Emission Vehicle
like a Tesla, permits are up from £0 to £125
and lower-emission cars up from £60 to £156
(UP 160%) which shows the
proposals are more about making money than the planet. ·
Even key workers
are bashed (e.g. UP 26% for a
single zone yearly permit). ·
Motorcycle permits will cost 70% of the inflated car permits for the same band. ·
Blue Badge permit holders are not typically charged, but may lose from
loss of parking spaces. ·
Hourly visitor parking charges are up for the vast
majority (e.g. Band 4 UP 28%). ·
They want you to forget it’s a REAL NO-BRAINER that cars parked with their engine off do not
generate any emissions! And we
already pay plenty of road tax (VED) to keep our vehicles on the road. |
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THE PROPOSALS … A SINISTER AGENDA ·
By law,
proposals should be about regulating
parking. These go some way towards eliminating
parking spaces, something that LBHF has sneakily been doing for years. “Reduce the demand of cars on this precious
borough asset, enabling the space to be used for… emerging needs.”. ·
“The parking spaces themselves are worth
around £4300 per annum as real estate and this kerbside space is seeing
increase demand [sic] from other uses such as cycle storage, flood defences,
greening and café areas. Increased demand
by the council eco-extremists, they mean! ·
“…will lead to
changes in vehicle usage, ownership and behaviour,
and to an increase in the use of greener transport alternatives, such as
cycling and walking within the borough”. Soft-soap for pushing
people out of their cars, and making them get rid of them. ·
The ‘Net Zero’/green excuse should
rather be called ‘Net Millions for the
council’? - but in the wider context, Gary Smith of the GMB union has
warned it will cost
jobs. Note that the Net Zero
minister Ed Miliband is trying to force through unpopular
and costly
measures on the excuse that ‘it saves the planet’, too! Reasoned
estimates based on the McKinsey
report are for up to £500Bn a
year (£18,000 per household / 12-15% of GDP) for the UK to achieve a miniscule change in temperature. ·
‘Net Zero’
and ‘Air
quality’ are also hyped try-ons for money-making,
as Sadiq Khan has shown. ·
“the
higher the tariffs, the better the shift in behaviour change.” Read: ‘The
more we can charge, the greater the misery!’ The extortionate charges on impacted drivers
will not be voluntary;
this exposes any pretence that the council is out to
‘encourage’ change. ·
‘Doing things to
people, not with them’ to use council-speak! But this is a council that uses
Orwellian language such as ‘a kinder borough…’ to cover its tracks. |
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DON’T LET THEM DRIVE YOU OFF THE ROAD … ·
Watch out for a consultation
on https://haveyoursay.lbhf.gov.uk/.
This is likely to be full of spin, one-sided and it won’t give you the wider
picture. ·
Don’t let them make a monkey out
of you - over-charge you or remove vital parking spaces you’ve paid for
several times in advance through your motoring
taxes. ·
The council’s war
on the motorist is continuing
with stealth. Facilities like road
space and parking spaces are being removed to make driving more unpleasant.
Look at the King
Street cycle lane fiasco. Or the Wandsworth
Bridge Road parklets and congestion-causing LTNs.
Or hyped
20mph limits after a strange ‘consultation’. ·
Your right to own or use a vehicle
at all is increasingly coming under
threat from Sadiq Khan’s draconian Mayor’s
Transport Strategy that the council supports. This seeks
to get LPG, petrol & diesel vehicles off the road and urges
councils to charge drivers more. (MTS
proposals 34 & 26, p144, p58). ·
Don’t be fobbed off by the prospect of council ‘help’
if you suffer hardship. Many others will suffer, so make sure you oppose the proposals. This is a
cash-hungry council and it plans to ‘review’ (read ‘increase?) parking
charges every year. ·
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ACT NOW. TELL THEM YOU’RE NOT HAPPY…. ·
You can email Sharon.Holder@lbhf.gov.uk wesley.harcourt@lbhf.gov.uk or the Leader of the Council stephen.cowan@lbhf.gov.uk (see creative graphic, top). ·
You can copy andy@andyslaughter.com (Hammersmith & Chiswick MP) or ben.coleman.mp@parliament.uk
(Chelsea & Fulham MP and still a councillor, who promised to be on the
side of constituents!).
Also your ward councillors (listed on www.lbhf.gov.uk).
·
Tell them this will break the LBHF cost of living pledge, but please don’t use inappropriate
language. ·
Please copy this webpage link widely: www.fairdealforthemotorist.org.uk/parkingcon.htm (a shorter PDF leaflet is on www.fairdealforthemotorist.org.uk/lbhfripoff.pdf (on secure server)). |
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Please help spread the
word and - better still - get others to help. Over 28,000 permits
are affected, and thousands more visitors who pay for ‘sessional parking’
(by the hour). . Campaign
articles index and data protection More on
LBHF abuse of the driving public Article on
Net Zero and the War on the Motorist Climate scares exposed
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