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The Council is generally quick to remove graffiti and fly tipping. When Richard reported this graffiti in Cedar Road at the foot of Northumberland House it was removed in a few days. Graffiti and fly tipping are a scourge. Report to us any instances you see.

WHAT HAS HAPPENED SO FAR

The Council decided that, as parking is often raised as a problem in the regular surveys of the views of residents on what they like about living in Sutton, it would ask all Sutton residents if parking was a problem in their road and what they would like done. The first round of consultation led to the traffic engineers proposing a parking control scheme in just three roads in this area – Chalgrove Road, The Ridgway and Mayfield Road. As there seemed to be no appetite for the full CPZ with machines, as in Langley Park Road, what was proposed was yellow lines operable for one hour a day to remove commuters and “long stay” parkers. There would also need to be bays where people could park at any time, to cater for those residents who have insufficient drive space and need to park a car on the street all day during the day. This is the scheme in Hillcroome Road.

These proposals were not given sufficient support by residents for the Council to have a mandate to proceed with them. Majority opinion in Chalgrove Road was against and, with about a third of residents responding, there was a roughly equal split of opinion in The Ridgway and in Mayfield, small majorities for in Mayfield and against in The Ridgway. The Council would only want to proceed with such a scheme if there was clear and strong resident support. Paradoxically, residents in Upland Road were keen to be included in any parking scheme for The Ridgway and Mayfield.

WHAT HAPPENS NOW

Responses to consultation suggested that a major problem with the proposals was the free bays, which were seen as a magnet for commuters and long stay parkers, squeezing out residents. The alternative to schemes that all have this disadvantage is a residents-only Permit Parking Area.

The way this works is that only residents can park their vehicles in the road for a “control period”, usually one or two hours each day on weekdays, thus removing commuters and long stay parkers. However, residents would need to obtain and display a parking permit on any vehicle they want to park in the road during the “control period”, and obtain “visitors’ permits” for their visitors. As this scheme will involve the costs of administration and enforcement, and it is only fair that these are borne by those who benefit from the scheme, there is a cost for a permit. The charges would be designed just to cover costs and policy is that they will not increase in the future by more than the index of prices. The cost of a first permit in the current CPZ area is £40 which contrasts with £90 in both Kingston and Merton, £99 in Richmond, £80 in Croydon. Studies consistently show that Sutton is one of the cheapest places in London to Park.

The Council will consult residents on this proposal. Some residents will not see this as a price worth paying to remove non-resident parking and will not support the scheme. That is understandable – we are not making any recommendation but just want to see if residents would or would not support such a parking control scheme.

In Sutton South Ward, the Council will consult residents in Chalgrove Road, The Ridgway, Mayfield Road, Farm Road, Upland Road, Kayemoor Road, Farm Close, Willis Avenue and Prior Avenue, in September, on whether residents want this scheme in their road. The proposed Permit Parking Area also extends into Belmont Ward, to Egmont Road.

For Willis Avenue, Prior Avenue, Kayemoor Road, Downside Road and Farm Close – the results of earlier consultation did not suggest a strong push for parking controls in these road, but residents are still being asked their view on whether they would now favour your road being included in any Permit Parking Area. There was a lower rate of response from these roads, perhaps because the Stage 1 proposals for parking controls in The Ridgway and Mayfield Road were thought to have limited implications. The displacement of parking, particularly if the Permit Parking Area extends to Upland Road, and the fact that numbers of vehicles parked is continuing to gradually increase, could have an impact in the medium to long term, also noting current housing developments in central Sutton. So the Council is again taking the views of residents of these roads.

We are not making any recommendation – as local Councillors we simply want to do what a majority of our residents want. We hope residents will respond to the consultation, in September, so we have a full picture.

There is an event to explain the proposals at Sutton library on 27 June.

The new pedestrian crossing in Mulgrave Road is a few yards outside our Ward but it will be of great benefit to our residents. Richard and Trish campaigned for this crossing. Crossing the road has never been easy at this point but the crossing will be of great importance and help.

THE ARTICLE BELOW WAS PUBLISHED IN MAY 2019 – THERE ARE FURTHER DEVELOPMENTS SO SEE THE LATER ARTICLE ABOVE. THIS ARTICLE IS KEPT ON THE SITE TO SHOW HOW THE PROPOSALS EVOLVED.

Sutton South Councillors have now seen the results of the second stage of
the consultation on parking. There was a strong response rate – about half of
residents responding in some roads, high for this type of study. The results
are clear enough for conclusions to be drawn, but raise some issues on which
some more detailed information would be helpful.

The results for Mayfield, The Ridgway and Chalgrove indicate that residents
are not happy with the proposals for yellow lines and bays, so might prefer a
residents’ permit parking area. Upland Road residents want to join in any scheme for this area, which makes it logical to also include Farm Road. There is concern about the form of the controls, the proposal being for yellow lines where parking is prohibited for a set period on weekdays, and bays where anyone can park. This could lead to competition between residents and commuters for the bays, the bays attracting “longstay” parkers and commuters touring the area looking for bays. The alternative is a Residents’ Parking Area with no yellow lines or bays, but only residents who have obtained a parking permit, or their visitors displaying a Visitors’ Permit, allowed to park in the street for this set period. This would remove commuters, increase the parking available to residents and eliminate the disadvantages described above, though there would be a charge for the permits to cover the administrative costs of the scheme. We
would like your views on these options.

There was a lower rate of response from Kayemoor Road, Prior Avenue, Willis Avenue, perhaps because the Stage1 proposals for parking controls in The Ridgway and Mayfield Road were thought to have limited implications. We think the displacement of parking, and the fact that numbers of vehicles parked is continuing to gradually increase, could have an impact in the medium to long term, particularly given current housing developments in central Sutton, So there is a case for further consulting residents of these roads, now that the parking control area will be extended to include Upland Road.

There will be further consultation.

 

 

The second round of consultation on parking proposals for the Ward has concluded and we await the results, which will be consulted on further. Here is the text of Richard’s speech on the parking consultation to the recent Council meeting.

“I am in my ninth year as a Councillor.

From day one, parking has been one of the major issues my residents complain to me about.

And it is obvious why – Sutton South Ward is close to the town centre, in the area close to the station there is intense demand for parking so it is rationed by making it a controlled parking zone, then you get to the area just outside the zone.

The example I always give is Mayfield Road which is the first road you come to outside the controlled zone walking east. So this road has bumper to bumper parking every day except Sunday, and the residents get fed up with it and campaign continuously for parking controls.

Over my nine years there have been several surveys of residents’ views on parking controls in Mayfield and neighbouring roads, including in 2016 when the three Ward Councillors – Councillor Shields, Councillor Fivey and myself, working across party lines as we often do – agreed a scheme with the traffic engineers which residents in Mayfield and neighbouring roads were consulted on. That scheme was abandoned as residents in other roads nearby said “What about us?” Fortunately the Parking Strategy Consultation had just been agreed so we were able to abandon the more limited scheme and promise a wider consultation of a wider area. I particularly remember this as the residents of Mayfield Road were not happy at the abandonment of the parking scheme for their road and came to the local committee to protest, where Councillor Shields told them we now intended to undertake a more “holistic” survey of the whole area. I particularly remember this as he used the word “holistic” and the residents looked at each other, seemingly wondering what this word meant.

So we, the Ward Councillors, jointly made a commitment to this consultation.

I think the staged consultation exercise is the best approach. It enables residents to see what is proposed for the wider area around them, based on the opinions of residents in the first round of consultation, and to modify their views accordingly in the second round.

And there will be a third round of consultation. Some residents say to me you are endlessly consulting, when are you going to do something?

The aim is to discover what the prevailing opinion is, and do what residents want.

Of course, whatever the result, even in some roads where there is a strong prevailing opinion, some people will be unhappy.

But that is no reason to hide under the table and not tackle what residents see as an important problem. We should not ignore it.

Now there are some bits of misinformation and distractions put about.

The “an abstention will be a positive vote” story has been adequately discredited. Of course, in Sutton South as a whole most residents are unaffected by these changes but in the roads affected there is a ferment of debate and social media helps spread awareness – every day someone tells me of some new Whatsapp or Facebook page. I cannot keep up.

The cash cow: parking schemes bring enforcement costs which have to be covered, though in fact of the 32 London Boroughs Sutton is one of the cheapest places to park. And we all know that the decision in the 2013 Barnet Council v Attfield case prohibits cross subsidisation of other Council services from parking charges, and as chair of the Audit and Governance Committee I can tell you that the external auditors would come down on us instantly if we breached that. In Sutton South the changes currently out for consultation would not increase revenue but would have costs.

Emissions based charging: I am not very green, we have two cars. The road tax – a charge set by Government – on my petrol driven Nissan is £120 a year. On my hybrid Honda it is £10. A massive difference. So relating charges to vehicle emissions is not an idea invented in the London Borough of Sutton, it is Government policy, a Conservative Government.

From next year the Ultra Low Emissions Zone will mean I will pay to drive my Nissan – but not my Honda – north of the south circular road, and with current public concern over the impact of vehicle emissions on air quality I would wager that the general direction of public policy in the UK in the next few years will be further in this direction, not in the direction of the abolition of such differential charges, which I see is the policy of Sutton Conservatives, but evidently not that of the Conservative party nationally.

Some residents in my Ward ask about the closure of the Brighton Road car park, six years ago. We can draw a distinction between people who are prepared to pay for parking and those not prepared to pay. If the people who park in the roads near Brighton Road were prepared to pay for parking – so might have parked in the Brighton Road car park, demolished six years ago – they could park at the Gibson Road car park, closer to the town centre, ten minutes walk from Brighton Road, which is never full.

The choice for Brighton Road is – is this site better used as the HQ of a major international company, creating 900 jobs in Sutton that would otherwise have been in Epsom, or as a half-empty car park ten minutes walk from another multi-storey car park which is never full.

My simple point on the parking strategy is this, we should consult our residents, and then do what they want us to do. It is not complicated.”

 

 

On 31 January Trish and Richard joined residents of Sutton Court and Beauclere House on a “Community Walkabout” organised by Sutton Housing Partnership (who manage the estate) to look at problems on the estate.

In freezing weather, the group toured the estate and found a number of instances of outside pipes and overflow pipes that are leaking, fencing in need of repair, fly tipping needing to be removed and lights that are not working – or in some cases still on in broad daylight, when they need not be.

The walkabout provided opportunity to discuss the problems of the estate with senior SHP staff. The “right to buy” has reduced the number of properties occupied by social housing tenants, with just under half of the properties in Sutton Court sold off and just over half in Beauclere House. In Beauclere House over a fifth of tenants are in receipt of Universal Credit, and over a fith are in arrears. This indicates the financial problems that many face.