PARKING CONUNDRUMS RAISED BY LOCAL MOTORIST'S FOI REQUEST
Reader Alastair Macfarlane has been dissatisfied for some time about parking problems around where he lives.
So much so that in mid-November he submitted a Freedom of Information request to the Council asking for clarification of the facts and figures.
He thinks that residents should be allowed to use the pay-and-display spaces for free if, despite holding a relevant zonal parking permit, there are no residents’ parking spaces available.
Mr Macfarlane lives in Drummond Place, but his frustrations are commonly voiced elsewhere in Edinburgh and for that reason we thought it worthwhile reprinting relevant passages of his correspondence below.
Mr Macfarlane thinks the situation is a disgrace, and that residents across the city should write in to the Council and complain.
[An interactive version of the map above, and other useful links, is available on the City of Edinburgh Council website here.]
FOI questions and answers
QUESTION 1: How do we recover charges for parking in pay and display when there are no permit spaces available?
ANSWER 1: The residents’ parking scheme was never designed to guarantee permit holders a space in or near the street in which they reside. The scheme is in place to give permit holders priority over other motorists when looking for a parking space during the restricted hours. Permits are provided on a zone by zone basis and competition may mean that you have to park further away from your property to obtain a space.
We know that residents can encounter problems at the start and end of the day and, for that reason, permit holders are permitted to park in pay and display bays, within their zone, free of charge between 8.30am and 9.00am. However, the responsibility rests with each permit holders [sic] to ensure that their vehicle is removed from the pay and display bay or that a valid voucher is purchased and displayed by 9.00am. There is no way to recover this cost.
QUESTION 2: How many residents’ parking spots in Drummond Place, Scotland Street, London Street, and Dublin Street, and how many permits have been issued?
ANSWER 2:
Unfair and inconsistent?
Spurtle understands from long years' patient listening that the mismatch between the number of permit holders and the number of permit parking bays makes many drivers' blood boil—this, despite the Council's often repeated argument about the limited aims of its arrangement. To the teeth-grinding motorist circling local streets in search of a space, it seems self-evidently unfair—an unjustifiable money-making racket perpetrated by a cynical local authority.
And breathe. And relax.
However, if permits were restricted to reflect availability more accurately, how could they be allocated fairly?
Another contentious point concerns an apparent inconsistency in the Council's response to permit holders' difficulties. It seems odd that the Council acknowledges the existence of problems at the start and end of the day, but concedes a free half-hour only in the morning. Why not also in the evening?
Puts fingers in ears, takes cover
And now to drop a lighted splint in the barrel of gunpowder. Isn't this all a bit ridiculous?
There are simply too many cars in the city centre. The lack of parking here is an inevitable consequence. It acts as an invisible hand applying a welcome brake on ever increasing private vehicle ownership.
Shouldn't those lucky enough to live in central areas like Broughton simply concede that running a car here is not always a viable or convenient luxury? Shouldn't we just learn to walk more, cycle further, and use public transport instead?
Got a view? Tell us at spurtle@hotmail.co.uk and @theSpurtle and Facebook
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@theSpurtle re parking. CEC are proposing to chang parking to allow "shared use" spaces. Any of them in those streets?
@theSpurtle FOI missed how many dwellings have multiple passes.
@theSpurtle In N1 can use permit in P&D space but not in zone 6, why? Make the roads friendlier for bikes and I won't need a car anyway!
@theSpurtle also Stockbridge seems to have much higher proportion of permit space to P&D than Broughton does.
@theSpurtle Living in the city by choice, but often need a car for work. Pet peeve is government funding of poorly accessible Silicon Glen.
@theSpurtle i don’t know why Edinburgh needs 27 zones. Similar sized area Kensington & Chelsea has ONE. Its an overcomplicated system
@theSpurtle and yes, there should be flexibility over permit holders using p&d bays,
@inchmama @theSpurtle Totally agree. Very unfair to lot of residents who live 50 yards froma zone less than half the price. #robbery
@theSpurtle the next time a permit zone Touareg's tyres are slashed, or a Kia keyed, the fuzz will be chapping your door first.
Broughton Spurtle @theSpurtle
As Adam Smith said in Grand Theft Auto: 'The advantage of an invisible hand is that it leaves only invisible fingerprints'. @papawasarodeo
@inchmama @theSpurtle It's to stop City Centre-dwellers from taking their car to do their shopping on George St.
NewTownCleanStreets @NTCleanStreets
@theSpurtle Disingenuous to say aim not to allow every resident to park at own front door when EVERY street has far more permits than spaces
@NTCleanStreets well an inner zone and an outerzone would sort that. @inchmama @theSpurtle
@NTCleanStreets @inchmama @theSpurtle but really...one of the brill things about living in a city is that most of us dont need a car.
@NTCleanStreets live in tenement with 11 flats. Only one car btwixt us all. 14 bikes though. @inchmama @theSpurtle
@CityCycling @theSpurtle @NTCleanStreets where do you keep all the bikes? Are you getting one of the council bike pods?
@CityCycling @inchmama @theSpurtle Am in a no-car household myself, so am not really defending the mentality, just observing reality
@CityCycling @NTCleanStreets @theSpurtle I do have a car but do my best not to drive in city I always head for the hills!
Rhona Stewart Cameron There aren't enough spaces for residents but it doesn't really help that local businesses are getting multiple permits for the same spaces. I watch someone parking in a space outside my house every morning and she doesn't appear to work in the near vicinity. She goes from Dundas Street up towards George Street and comes back to her car at the end of the working day and drives away. I've sat in Great King Street waiting for a space and it's amazing how many spaces appear when people are leaving offices. There are also many more multiple occupation flats in the area now mostly occupied by students. Most of their cars never move from one week to the next. Isn't it time the Council put the people who are permanent residents first.
E-mail from Caroline Roussot in response to Rhona Stewart Cameron: In Cumberland St, the students have bikes chained up at the bottom of the stair, which don't tend to move between one year and the next. The cars that never move belong to pensioners who don't want to risk losing their space.
What about Broughton's best kept secret? The informal weekday commuter car park at Tesco on Broughton Rd. Thoughts … http://www.broughtonspurtle.org.uk/news/infuriating-mismatch-or-no-bad-thing …
@theSpurtle Not so secret now, is it?
@oldscotbooks Possibly not. Whoops.
@theSpurtle people who live in Georgian houses shouldn't throw tantrums about incompatability with storing 20th C. personal transport
Paul John Donnelly Parking permits are a fraud. The council sell for instance 500 permits for 100 spaces. Now if the shoe was on the other foot?