Open letter to Cllrs John Marshall, Andrew Harper and Daniel Seal

You will be aware of strong public feeling against the proposed increases in parking charges in the borough and of similar unhappiness about the removal of remaining free spaces inside the borough’s controlled parking zones.

These proposals have brought to the public’s attention an arrangement whereby councillors appear to be entitled to a “Member’s Permit” exempting them from the day-to-day experience of using the parking controls within the borough.

Naturally, we have no objection to councillors recovering parking expenses while on council business, but it would seem more proper these should be reclaimed on a trip-by-trip basis, on the same principle that would apply to any other business user of the parking facilities.

If councillors effectively exempt themselves from normal parking procedures, how can they possibly understand the reactions and perceptions of all those other citizens who are subject to them, including residents and visitors to the area?

Furthermore, you may feel, as we do, that appearances are especially important at a time when the public is unusually conscious of the way in which politicians conduct themselves with regard to expenses. Where parking is concerned, you will know for the rest of us, there is an array of impositions with which we must comply, including the need always to carry the right change, the importance of positioning pay-and-display or visitor vouchers where they can be seen, the necessity of returning within a certain time and the irritation of having to appeal against parking tickets when these and multiple other conditions are not fulfilled to the council’s satisfaction.

Councillors with permits also do not have to grapple with the latest unsatisfactory set of rules requiring motorists to pay parking charges using a mobile phone in the many locations where the council has failed to ensure its pay-and-display machines are working properly.

It may be these matters have not previously been brought to your attention, but now that we have done so we are confident you will see the political and moral difficulties of maintaining free permits for councillors.

Were these to be retained you will surely recognise it would greatly undermine public confidence in councillors’ ability to act as impartial legislators in parking and traffic matters.

Accordingly, we call upon you, the Garden Suburb ward councillors, to waive your rights to free parking permits for use in Barnet and to agree to subject yourselves to the same regulations and processes that apply to your constituents.

Not wishing you to suffer less notice than residents affected by the latest changes, we should be pleased to hear that you will consent to relinquish your Member Permits from the date that the new parking price rises become effective.

Hampstead Garden Suburb Residents Association