Parking problems are almost guaranteed to arouse passions amongst residents. Now those of us living south of the Uxbridge Road and west of Northfield Ave have our chance to get steamed up. The Council has received a number of requests for a CPZ in the Fielding Primary School area. Following these requests and a parking survey, the Council has issued a consultation about a CPZ. The consultation covers a wider area to take in to account the perennial problem of parking displacement whereby areas surrounding a new CPZ get more cars parking on their streets.
I always feel a bit ambivalent about CPZs. Living very close to the West Ealing shopping centre in an as yet non-CPZ zone I can understand the frustration of not being able to park anywhere near your house. Yet, and it is a big yet, I worry about the impact on local businesses and their staff who may have to drive to work as public transport doesn’t work for them. A light touch CPZ, say with one hour in the morning and one in the afternoon, should not have that big an effect on shoppers who can usually adjust their shopping times. But it’s far more difficult for people who come to work in West Ealing as they will usually have set working hours. How do they deal with the impact of a CPZ?
The consultation ends on 18th April. In the meantime, there is an exhibition about the consultation plans on Sunday 30th March 11am – 4pm at Northfield Community Centre in Northcroft Road.
One has to wonder if a number of residents in an existing CPZ complained to the Council about not wanting a CPZ whether the Council would carry out a public consultation on whether to remove the CPZ.
I’m led to believe that Council commissioned Parking surveys cost £17,000. However I’m certain that the Council hasn’t done an empirical parking study to discover why folks are parking, where they live, where they work and exactly who the drivers are.
The impact of imposing a CPZ could to some extent empty some streets during the day but find them just as rammed at night. Presumably more traffic wardens will have to be hired to make the CPZ exercise worthwhile in terms of revenue collection in parking fines. If not there will be reduced enforcement in another CPZ and parking revenue income will be static.
As a NIMBY I suspect that with the CPZ ending at Grosvenor/Seward Roads, my road Manton Avenue will be filled with cars displaced from the new CPZ. Allied to this if the new gastro pub at The Grosvenor turns out to be a big hit no doubt pub punters will also park in Manton Avenue. How long before house owners in my road start digging up their front gardens and tarmacing or gravelling so their car can be parked off road. Hey ho…..
While I can understand the problems with parking for those living close to Fielding School, in our particular area of West Ealing it is not daytime parking which is a problem but night time and weekends. More and more properties are being converted to flats or multiple occupancy and there are more cars owned by residents than there are parking spaces in the road. Setting up a CPZ in our street would not address this. It needs a far more radical solution such as some consideration for parking requirements when considering planning applications for conversion of family homes to flats.