Parking Fines to Rise

Huge Increase in Price of Ealing Parking Permits

Fees will rise by £30 in areas with all day CPZs

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Ealing residents will be paying an extra 66% for their parking permits after the Council announced an increase in charges.

The cost of a permit will increase from £25 to £40 a year for zones that are in operation two hours a day, and from £45 to £75 for those that are in operation all day.

Ealing claim that they currently pay around £750,000 each year towards running the zones. This will come as a surprise to many residents who assume that the rapid expansion of CPZs in recent years was driven by the extra revenue it provided. The costs they have used to calculate the amount are broken down in the table below. They have made calculations based on two different assumption one that includes enforcement revenues and costs and one that does not. The claim that the subsidy is £750,000 is derived by splitting the difference between the two calculations. The council say they are no longer in a position to provide so great a subsidy and those with CPZ permits must pay more towards the cost themselves.

Resident Permits		2009-2010
		Calculation 1	Calculation 2
		Inc PCN Income	Exc PCN Income
		£	£
Income
Permits		848,220	848,220
Visitor vouchers		343,000	343,000
Other permits		200,000	200,000
PCN Income		1,831,600
Total Income		3,222,820	1,391,220
Expenditure
Operational cost:
	Administration	722,457	355,423
	Enforcement	1,037,800	535,400
	PATAS	250,000
	Service management salaries	107,284	107,284
	Customer Service Contact Centre	457,430	228,715
	Corporate Overheads	535,766	495,766
	IT System	60,350	60,350
Total Operational Cost		3,171,087	1,782,938
Capital Cost		602,249	602,249
Total Expenditure		3,723,336	2,385,187
TOTAL Subsidy		-550,516	-993,967
Volume of Resident Permits		22,823
Volume of Other permits		1,646
Total permits		24,469
Average Subsidy per permit		-£22	-£41

Source: Ealing Council

The charges will take effect from 1 January 2011 and incorporate the increase in VAT next year.

Cabinet member for Transport and Environment, Councillor Bassam Mahfouz, said: “As a council we face a massive challenge to balance the books as a consequence of national government cuts. Currently all council tax payers, including around a third of households that don’t have a vehicle and thousands of people who don’t live in controlled parking zones, help subsidise the cost of operating CPZs. We are increasing the price of permits to reduce the subsidy provided by other council tax payers, but the costs are still competitive compared to other boroughs.”

The council will introduce telephone payment in all its car parks and on street parking. People will even be able to pay by phone when they are visiting someone in a CPZ, rather than residents having to pre-order vouchers when they are expecting guests.

Drivers will also be able to pay for their permits monthly by Direct Debit to help spread the charge.

The council is also changing the way CPZ visitor vouchers are paid for. Currently there are several different vouchers in operation - some are all day and others are for three hours. The council is intending to move to a 50p hourly rate, meaning people don’t have to use a full day’s voucher if they are only parking for a short time.

All cabinet decisions are subject to call-in for a period of five days from the date of publication of the minutes of the meeting.

September 15, 2010