Forum Topic

More CPZs Around Ealing in 2009 2010

Ealing Council Cabinethttp://www.ealing.gov.uk/ealing3/export/sites/ealingweb/services/council/committees/agendas_minutes_reports/cabinet/20may2008-15may2009/_7_apr_09/Item_15_-_CPZ_Programme_2009-10.docYou might be forgiven for thinking that you will be informed via AE.I often wonder if the residents against CPZs outnumber those for.Any ideas?

George Knox ● 6390d42 Comments

I notice that the document is not 100% spelling error free.

Alan Brainsby ● 6390d

I looked at this document but it doesn't seem to spell out exactly which roads are being proposed. Did I miss something? Our area voted against a CPZ a couple of years ago. Do they go round again until they get the answer they want?

Penny Crocker ● 6389d

Part of the re-invitation(?) for a CPZ is due to displacement of cars into free parking areas.Personally I would like to see whole areas of central Ealing as CPZs, not this slow fragmented approach of implementation.Why is there consultation? The roads affected are council property anyway.

Alan Brainsby ● 6389d

I just got a CPZ consultation questionnaire in the post today. (I live in the Little Ealing area btw)

James de Vivenot ● 6389d

It would be pretty hihgh-handed if the council were just to impose parking restrictions in residential streets miles from the centre of Ealing/tube stations without at least asking the residents. I live a mile from the tube and 2 miles from the main shops so I don't see any justification for CPZs.  Having said that, I guess it makes them so much money that they will just keep asking until people cave in and allow CPZs everywhere. May as well just await the inevitable.

Penny Crocker ● 6389d

Penny, that's a reasonable comment for an area which has "residential" parking, ie residents' parking.For areas near railway stations and offices/works etc where commuter parking is heavy then the CPZ should extend as far as, wait for it, 20 minutes walk from those locations.Twenty minutes walk should be sufficient to deter commuter parking, as if one's going to drive one isn't going to walk.On a slightly different note: why should residents leave their vehicles for free on council highways?

Alan Brainsby ● 6389d

We do pay road tax and council tax and surely, where houses have no off-street parking,  then people should be able to leave their cars somewhere? I have parking for 3 cars so it really doesn't matter to me personally but I think paying to park on some suburban road which is of no strategic importance is a bit off ! I guess if we want to wipe our car driving completely then we will also wipe out a hell of a lot more jobs. What do we do with all the fallout?

Penny Crocker ● 6389d

Alan, is there anywhere in Ealing that is further than 20 minutes walk from a railway station or offices?

James de Vivenot ● 6389d

Extending your logic why should residents be able to stand or walk for free on Council owned pavements?What's wrong per se about commuter parking? The Council needs to build car parks for commuters.Many towns have Park and Ride schemes - but Ealing isn't one of them.Ealing Council still does not have a published CPZ policy which might describe (if it existed) the underlying motivations and isues involved in setting up Ealing Council type CPZs.An Ealing Council CPZ may completely envelop Northfield Avenue soon and because of the Council's unimaginative and Draconian attitude to out of area worker parking we may lose some of our more well established shops.

Eric Alan Leach ● 6389d

There are two types of commuters; 1) those who drive to Ealing, leave their cars all day and travel on by our many transport links and 2) those who work in Ealing shops and businesses and maybe drive in before public transport is up and running in the morning.  Each time a CPZ is introduced or extended there are fewer parking spaces for these workers due to displacement into any remaining non-CPZ areas.  Eric Leach has the right idea about the danger to local shops, so why can't the council accept that local businesses and/or employees are just as much a part of the community as residents.  Businesses can get a "business vehicle" parking permit but at a cost ten times that of a residents permit.  Workers only use parking space vacated by residents who drive off to work elsewhere and in turn, vacate the space at the end of the day.  How can this be accommodated in a consultation?

Brian Davis ● 6389d

I agree Brian. And there's no point telling people to use public transport. If we all did, the system couldn't cope. Tubes are full to bursting as it is. I know, I travel on them most days and thoroughly horrible it is too. On other occasions I travel to work in a place totally inaccessible by public transport and so sadly, I need a car.

Penny Crocker ● 6389d

Got you lot thinking !My thoughts are as follows:Penny - houses with no off-street parking - hard luck. They are probably in a lower Council Tax Band anyway. It's also not a god-given right to own a car.James -  distance from shops/offices - northwest of Ealing Broadway - Pitshanger area and upper end of Argyle Road.Eric - Council car parks for commuters - perhaps, but they wouldn't be free which really is why commuters don'. Of course the ideal place to build them would be on the land occupied by premises which don't have parking facilities. When those premises were built the proprietor and staff probably lived within a couple of hundred metres. That they might not nowadays would show that the premises are unsuitable for our times. Brian - I am not suggesting NO parking but that it is not free for all-day parking. The advantages of  CPZs is that the share out limited parking space.Penny - overloaded public transport - there are lots of answers I can think of - Too many commuters because of bad social engineering (the 1940s Abercrombie plan for rebuilding Greater London addressed that) is just one.Incidentally my idea for the 20 minute walk is based on the thought most people would not want to walk for that length of time.

Alan Brainsby ● 6389d

LOL - u should stand for local governemnt.

Penny Crocker ● 6389d

Alan, the top end of Argyle Road is well within 20 minutes walk of Perivale tube and Castlebar Park/West Ealing overground stations. Pitshanger Lane is within 20 minutes of Hangar Lane.

James de Vivenot ● 6389d

Penny, you've just reminded me.Eric's suggestion of charging for pedestrian usage of footpaths:what would any of us do if someone stood outside one's house from 07:30 to 18:30 even if that individual wasn't peering in?Eric's suggestion of extending my logic by charging for pedestrian use of footways has a certain merit. I have never considered toll-paths before but here are a few ideas:Toll-path zones to be set up similar to CPZs.Toll-booths erected at the entrances to a TPZ.Toll-tickets available from strategically placed machines in the street for those arriving by car.Toll-gates installed at the exits points from railway stations and  bus stops within those toll zones.Toll-booths would incorporate, besides the booth and turnstiles, a metal detector arch, x-ray scanner etc, for obvious reasons, and a weighing machine. The latter would be used to determine the toll levied, similar to cars paying less than lorries on toll roads and like my previous post on a fairer council taxThe sums levied would used to maintain existing footpaths  and to extend the network.Penny - you're right - maybe I should go into local government!

Alan Brainsby ● 6389d

I vote that the toll-booth keepers also get tasers to use on cyclists on the pavement.

Susan Kelly ● 6389d

James, I must be getting older and slower.I must agree that those stations are probably nearer than 20 minutes walk.But would one actually like to do it 10 times a week? Especially when it raining, lugging a handbag/case/umbrella/raincoat and for many individuals before dawn and after sunset.I would think the walk to Perivale station, from say Gurnell Grove leisure complex, is pretty miserable even on a fine day. I've never done it. The footpath from Pitshanger Lane towards Perivale, which I have walked, it pretty dire too. At least the route is flattish, except the footbridge over Western Avenue.Still if we had toll paths in other parts these facilities could be improved! An interesting exercise, to me at least, would be to identify the various types of commuter parking, eg whether people drive into Ealing to take advantage of Zone 3 for onward travel to London, the extensive transport links from Ealing Broadway Broadway, or whatever.

Alan Brainsby ● 6389d

An interesting and creative thread this one.Alan - you are probably too imaginative to enter local government. Your point about CPZs being about sharing out limited car parking space is an interesting one and makes alot of sense. However we don't know the underlying principles of Ealing Council CPZs because the Council has never told us all what they are. It's not written down anywhere in the public domain.

Eric Alan Leach ● 6389d

I like the CPZs which are 1 hour in the morning and again in the afternoon, they are an act of inspiration. This does stop commuter/all-day parking but allows enough time - 4 hours - for most shopping and services.It's free all day parking I object to. I reiterate my objections to parking on bus routes, except in designated bays, at any time.

Alan Brainsby ● 6388d

CPZs are no more than sticking plasters and are an indication of the bonkers short-term thinking of councillors and their planners. The transport system is finite, so reduce the need for it. Simple, for each and every home there needs to be a corresponding place of employment within walking or cycling distance. Not just shops and offices but workshops for the artisans among us as well.Don't forget leisure facilities. All over Ealing, before we left, we saw factories coming down and replaced with chicken coops. Watch out, green spaces will be under increasing danger next.I wonder, will we ever again see a council chamber with councillors who care about their community and don't just see it as a job? Will we see local planners who are proud of what they are doing and have done for Ealing, so much so, that they would encourage their children to settle in Ealing?

Peter Wright ● 6385d

Spot on! CPZs are a very short term solution to a problem.They are corrupt a)intellectually corrupt...in that no research is ever done to discover who is parking in a street, why they are parking there and what the effects might be if they are excluded by a CPZ. Some visiting motorists simply park in the roads just outside a zone. They don't go away. This is called displacement. It places sudden and unbearable pressure on those roads that are unfortunate enough to find themselves just outside a zone. This in turn begets an extension. No one in the CPZ planning department goes on to become an epidemiologist and we have to be thankful for that. Just like a bush fire the advancing CPZ front leaves behind it empty roads where people used to park... a wasted economic resource.b)morally corrupt...in that the authority indicates that the extension or the introduction of a CPZ solves the problem. This is clearly not the case. Some of the most subtle problems are caused by CPZs...like employment..are raised above. Try going to Ealing Police station to report a crime using your car. The car park used to be for us the punters now it is for officers and staff only. They can't park nearby because of CPZs. This isn't a criticism of the police it just shows that a community is made up of lots of facets and having a home and a car are only two there are many more. The Bible tells us that man cannot live by bread alone but to loose a baker in Northfield Ave would be a disaster and so would losing a butcher or a nursery or finding your doctor in one zone and you in another.c)Fiscally corrupt..in that 10 years ago Ealing probably made no money out of parking. Now with a little help from its CPZ friends it makes millions.So we can't win CPZs are "planning by the back door" and no one cares about this rush for CPZ cash or the damage it does to the non residential infrastructure. This may be the reason there is no proper policy (Eric Leach) see above.Finally I have to say that councillors don't want to discuss policy. All the attempts I have made in this area have been rejected but tis difficult to listen when the till bell rings so loudly.

Arthur Breens ● 6385d

Arthur, I couldn't agree more.I am amazed how parked vehicles seem to evaporate when a CPZ is introduced eg Carlton Road W5.It's a pity the council hasn't made more of non-resident CPZ parking by charging using ticket machines as they have done in Haven Lane and still prevent all-day parking. Of course this would include areas around schools...

Alan Brainsby ● 6385d

Alan I am not certain that I want to withdraw the ability of non residents to park in my road all day. Let us look at the police example. The police are important. We want police to work in Ealing. But we also want to be able to access the Ealing Police station car park at times of emergency. The solution to free the car park for punter use is to allow officers in most need (coming long distances at unsocial hours)to be able to commute by car AND be found an available place to park maybe Carlton Road or outside my house. Similarly the bakers in Northfield Ave should if we value their services be found designated spaces in roads maybe not next to where they work but on a flank wall nearby. As Brian Davies says many residents leave in the morning to be replaced by people arriving to provide services. The reason I live in Ealing is because there are for the time being well developed services otherwise I could choose to live in the Outer Hebrides. If the council blindly pursue a policy of prohibiting workers we will have no or reduced services.The only serious answer I have received from the council to this line of reasoning is"How do traders survive in Central London?". And most readers will understand that the economics and logistics of running a business in Northfield Ave are quite different from running one in Sloane Square. So the question is quite stupid in that it does nothing to help solve the problem. Someone should really look at how CPZs are damaging the service sector which is central to the pleasure of living here. If only I could help Councillor Milligan to change his mantra to "Shop Local Park Local".

Arthur Breens ● 6385d

Certain jobs may require getting to work at unsocial times but travelling by car and leaving it in a street isn't mandatory. There are alternatives.

Alan Brainsby ● 6385d

Of course there are alternative ways to travel to work, even at unsociable hours.  Workers who may not be in a position to afford to live in the Queen of the Suburbs, could walk for an hour or two or cycle perhaps in all weathers.  But what if you need to carry tools, equipment, books, materials and that work you took home last night?  This encompasses tradesman, shopkeepers, health professionals, teachers, police, firefighters, butchers, bakers and the odd candlestick maker who serve this community but get no consideration when CPZ consultations are formulated and published.  These people contribute over 20% of the council's revenue (compared to over 30% by residents) but get no say or vote to defend themselves with.

Brian Davis ● 6384d

..and many companies, including mine no longer give their staff desks so they have to carry their office in a laptop and papers....very heavy and awkward enough on the tube, let alone walking for hours. One of the offices I visit is not accessible at all by public transport and would involve me walking with said laptop etc for over an hour.....just ain't gonna work.

Penny Crocker ● 6384d

I am not suggesting no parking but chargeable parking.In the 1960s a butcher's shop in South Ealing Road had 6 employees, THe six cars they drove to work effectively reduced parking in South Ealing Road by a fifth.Anyway what about other areas of London where there is probably no free on-street parking?

Alan Brainsby ● 6384d

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7987301.stmIn two or three years the problem will be solved.

Alan Brainsby ● 6384d

I have lived and worked in London for over 25 years and I've never had a car. I have friends & relatives who live all over the country incl. my mother who lives in Cornwall. I have absolutely no problem getting anywhere without a car. I understand why SOME people need to have one, but generally I find that those people who don't really need one are just lazy and love coming up with excuses not to use public transport! (And they are excuses rather than good reasons).

Faith Wardle ● 6382d

I would agree with you Faith.The REAL use I have had with a car in London was as a mobile bedroom  - Dukes Meadows, Horsenden Hill, Hampstead Heath... ... happy days!

Alan Brainsby ● 6382d

Gosh Faith, who made you the car owner police?? I don't need to have my hair coloured by I do. I don't need 3 pairs of boots but I have them. I don't need to go out for dinner but I do. I exercise my freedom of choice, as I did when I bought a car and when I drive it. Please tell me we still live in a country where people get to choose for themselves.

Sue Elliott ● 6381d

The problem isn't so much driving a car but what to do with it when it's not being driven.I daresay the loudest squeakers against backstreet traffic of the Save Our Streets campaign regarding the proposed tramway were car owners.

Alan Brainsby ● 6381d

I'm not suggesting we ban cars completely - it would just be so refreshing to hear a few people actually admit now and again that they could use their cars less if they really tried. It's about collective responsibility and when it comes to cars people just stick their heads in the sand most of the time.

Faith Wardle ● 6381d

It's an old argument isn't it. Collective responsibility VS individual choice. Politically poles apart. I am happy to admit that I could use my car less, but I choose not to. However I could recyle far less and be far less stringent with power use. So if it is just a 'green' argument then it really comes down to swings and round-abouts. I happily, loudly say that I would be appalled to be living in some collective / commune, being told what to do by committee decision. No I would be more than appalled, I just wouldn't be there.

Sue Elliott ● 6380d

Some people are as like minded as myself when it comes to how a town should be planned. It doesn't have to be commune to work either. Click here.

Peter Wright ● 6380d

A noble experiment - until the commuters and others arrive.Perhaps instead of calling it Poundbury it might be called Ealing 1878 (that's one year before the Metropolitan District Railway set up shop at Haven Green).Of course it works at the moment, it's small, based on how most villages started and grew (and grew).However when the government sequesters land for overflow housing of the hordes expected into this country...... and have they got a mosque there already?PS Is there a picture of Number 6's house?

Alan Brainsby ● 6380d

I am not about to argue against people's right to choose to live in a place like poundbury. Good luck to them. I hope they can find like minded teachers and doctors etc so that they and their children can be developed properly and with best care. For me it would be hideous!! Everyone knowing everyone and everyone's business. The same old same old would bore me to distraction. I find it more than a little strange however that my choice to live in and love, the fabulous bustle and sometimes madness of the city, to be somehow deviant and misguided.Horses for courses I say. I wont choose for you, but I will choose for myself.

Sue Elliott ● 6380d

I think Poundbury would be a great place to live and work but I would also like a weekend retreat in Central London. Not with my Lotto numbers this week though.

Peter Wright ● 6379d

Good luck with the Lotto Peter. My win will go on more visits to really big anonymous cities where I can wander around or .... maybe drive... oops!! Dont want to drag out the debate. Hope there is enough in the lotto bin for both of us.

Sue Elliott ● 6378d

I've been doing the lottery since it started, at £1 per week (only recently started doing midweek and Euro). I have never won more than £10, so don't hold your breath.By the way I should like to change my preferred city retreat to York, maybe Leeds.

Peter Wright ● 6378d

Is that butchers shop still there look at Hanwell West Ealing I have not shopped there for years too much trouble I just get in the car and go to Tescos these cpzs will just kill the local shops and there will be no reason to visit these areas anyway and all the car haters can live on their own but may have to travel to find a shop ?

Robert Leeuwerke ● 6277d

The Council would like to Tax us all to park in our Roads so that they can then give us back £50 off Council Tax. After a CPZ comes in people think that they will be able to park outside their house. All that happens is that Visitors get tickets for dropping off something at your House. Ealing Council have designed 'improvements'to Campbell Road in Hanwell which will result in diminished parking and therefore a CPZ. They state that a CPZ will be needed in their Crossrail documents. Some days things are tricky but generally ok. But the Council do not believe in Consultation as everything suggested by residents on the 'improvements' has been ignored and the plan is unchanged. Local Democracy?? Nonsultation is just a tick box exercise.

Peter Chadburn ● 6273d