Parking consultation
The statutory consultation to introduce new parking permit charges to address poor air quality, the climate emergency and vehicle emissions closed on July 29, 2020.
The parking proposals are aimed at encouraging residents to switch towards less polluting vehicles and to encourage more local trips to be made by sustainable modes of transport, like walking and cycling.
In 2019, the Council declared a climate emergency and published a 25-point action plan to address the challenges of poor air quality in the borough, including measures to reduce the amount of pollution created by vehicles.
Emissions from vehicles are a major contributor to the Borough’s poor air quality and parking policies and procedures are one important factor in which we can influence the number, type and the use of vehicles and can be an important tool in delivering behavioural change and air quality improvement.
We approved these proposals in Cabinet in February 2020, and then held a public consultation, followed by a formal statutory consultation.
The statutory consultation closed in July 2020. Out of 199 responses received all of the objections included concerns about costs associated with the implementation of emissions-based permit charges.
- 41 of the responses objected only to a charge for the first resident permit per household;
- 61 objected to a charge for the first resident permit per household but raised other concerns relating to air quality and timescales for implementation;
- 63 responses objected to the introduction of emissions-based permit charges and a high number also raised concerns about the costs associated with these charges during the current economic crisis with job losses and Covid-19;
- 1 objection related to the 2 hour free parking allocation, and
- 19 responses were in full support of the proposals.
The remaining 14 responses did not object to the proposals but asked for more information or made comments in relation to other parking matters.
Following a review of the feedback the council has decided to move forward with emissions based charging due to the need to address the issue of vehicle emissions and poor air quality in the borough.
Newham is one of only two out of 33 London Boroughs which currently does not apply a charge for the first residential permit, with all our neighbouring boroughs already applying a charge. Additionally those councils where emissions-based charging is in place have found it effective in reducing vehicle emissions by influencing behavioural change helping to improve air quality.
Emissions based charging has been implemented in Newham since 6 January 2021.
What has been implemented?
- Emissions-based vehicle charging bands for residential permits (based on DVLA groupings)
- First free permit for electric and most plug in hybrid vehicles
- Emissions-based vehicle charging bands for business and industrial permit charges (including discounted permits for Newham-based charities)
- Introduction of paperless permits managed in new online system “MiPermit Newham”
- Other permit charge increases (eg: resident visitor permits)
- Increasing 10 hours resident visitor permits to 12 hours
- Introduction of free 2 hour monthly parking allocations for resident parking permit holders