Parking Permits in Hillsborough.

[Penistone999]

 

 

There is no such thing as a "scamera"

 

Nicely swerved. I will try again.

 

Does the loophole allowing the parking permit money to be used for "other transport uses" include the instalation of Speed Scameras. ?

[Planner1]

So the fact that in some cases the 'ballot' took place when most of the properties were empty and therefore the residents of those properties had no chance to respond is fair?

 

I know of a street where 100% of responses were against it - okay it was only 1 out of 30 , but no-one else said they responded when asked - but that was ignored by the council.

 

How are the Council supposed to know whether a property is empty or not?

 

Nothing is ignored. The decision makers are told of the responses and they make their decision. They may take a different view to the respondent, but that is not ignoring them. You cannot please all the people all the time.

 

---------- Post added 13-01-2013 at 13:19 ----------

 

Nicely swerved. I will try again.

 

Does the loophole allowing the parking permit money to be used for "other transport uses" include the instalation of Speed Scameras. ?

 

Again, there is no such thing.

[Litotes]

How are the Council supposed to know whether a property is empty or not?

 

Common sense would prevail.

 

Hmm, when should I ballot an area to ensure a fair and proper representation????

 

How about the summer holidays when lots of people are away... Brilliant, then we can say we did our duty, but lessen the chance that the residents may not actually want this scheme that is going to cost them loads and will being them very little benefit...

[Planner1]

Common sense would prevail.

 

Hmm, when should I ballot an area to ensure a fair and proper representation????

 

How about the summer holidays when lots of people are away... Brilliant, then we can say we did our duty, but lessen the chance that the residents may not actually want this scheme that is going to cost them loads and will being them very little benefit...

Consultations / ballots are usually open for a period long enough for most people to be on holiday at the start, but still have enough time to consider and respond when they return.

[BoroB]

Re the number of requests, I'd say I saw more than 20, they came in pretty regularly, but you need to remember I stopped seeing these 7 years ago, there will have been others I haven't seen. They often came in as multiple requests, perhaps commenting on bus gates or traffic management issues as well. People often mention multiple issues when the contact the Council. There were many on file, going back a long time.

 

We would receive many requests for permit schemes, mostly from the areas around the city centre. Hillsborough always stood out to me as the place outside the city centre which generated most requests. Woodseats was also a place where people requested a permit scheme, but more came from Hillsborough.

 

 

 

No one, including you, knows what the majority wanted, because they had stated no opinion. Enough people had raised the issue of a permit scheme for the Council to bring forward a proposal for the local people to discuss and decide on. As you know, the scheme was only implemented where the people wanted it, those areas which said no thanks didn't get it. Seems fair enough.

 

 

 

The Council will take a view on the results they receive. It would be wrong to make comments or speculate on what the results might be, so I am not sure exactly what you would want them to publish.

 

The normal course of action is that a report is compiled, with recommendations and it is taken to the Cabinet Highways Committee for Councillors to take a view on what they want done.

 

 

 

Can you point out where it says these things have to dealt with independently?

 

The decisions are taken by politicians, who are elected by the people to represent them. They are accountable at the ballot box.

 

---------- Post added 13-01-2013 at 12:54 ----------

 

I'm not interested in what answer you would take. The answer would be none of your business.

 

---------- Post added 13-01-2013 at 12:55 ----------

 

 

There is no such thing as a "scamera"

 

Thanks for that.

 

So it takes a few more than 20 requests out of 100's of households for a scheme to be considered. If a few more than 20 asked for a scheme to be revoked would that happen?

 

In my experience if people express no opinion on a subject it is usually because they are happy with things how they are.

 

With regards to the review, it would have been useful for the council to state how they will use the replies to make an informed decision. Ie, will the council remove the scheme if the majority of respondents are against it? Will they keep the scheme if one person replies positively about the scheme? If the respondents are split 50:50 what will the council do?

 

As for independence, you seem to be saying that the council doesn't have to be independent and thus not act in an unbiased way.

 

If a scheme is reviewed by the very people who conceived, instigated and implemented it I think it is clear to guess what the review's outcome will be. Why not an independent review?

 

It could be argued that the review should be scrapped given that less than four weeks after the deadline for responses has expired the council has already announced changes (price increases) that were not mentioned in the review documentation.

[Planner1]

 

So it takes a few more than 20 requests out of 100's of households for a scheme to be considered. If a few more than 20 asked for a scheme to be revoked would that happen?

That's up to the decision makers, the Councillors

 

With regards to the review, it would have been useful for the council to state how they will use the replies to make an informed decision. Ie, will the council remove the scheme if the majority of respondents are against it? Will they keep the scheme if one person replies positively about the scheme? If the respondents are split 50:50 what will the council do?

That's up to the decision makers and whatever view they take at the time a decision is required. It seems to me to be quite prescriptive to be setting out pre-considered responses at the beginning. Isn't it better to see what the substance of the responses actually is, before they decide what should be done?

As for independence, you seem to be saying that the council doesn't have to be independent and thus not act in an unbiased way.

 

If a scheme is reviewed by the very people who conceived, instigated and implemented it I think it is clear to guess what the review's outcome will be. Why not an independent review?

The Council is the Highway Authority, it is their responsibility to deal with all local highway matters.

 

There is no requirement on them to have "independent" reviews. There is no requirement on them to review anything in the first place, but they're doing it because they think it's a reasonable thing to do and they know that patterns of use develop over time and issues that hadn't been previously considered can come to light.

 

Would you rather the Council spent large amounts of money bringing in independent bodies to review everything and actually did less schemes as a result, or would you rather they just got on with doing what local people have asked them to do?

 

It could be argued that the review should be scrapped given that less than four weeks after the deadline for responses has expired the council has already announced changes (price increases) that were not mentioned in the review documentation.

That's because the price increase hadn't been considered at the time the consultation was put in place, ie several months ago.

 

No one has ever promised that there would be no price increases, so there is no reason to scrap the consultation.

[autumn]

Lots of people did not and still do not realise that having a permit does not give them a place to park outside their homes or even on their street . How many people just put leaflets straight into the bin without reading . I know my husband does .This scheme in my opinion has many flaws a big one being the collection of data and opinions . I had to talk it through with my elderly neighbours . A door to door survey would have been better but I suppose paying someone would have been a step too far ,although how much must the leaflets have cost to produce .

[Planner1]

Lots of people did not and still do not realise that having a permit does not give them a place to park outside their homes or even on their street .

This is made clear when a proposed scheme is consulted on.

 

This scheme in my opinion has many flaws a big one being the collection of data and opinions . I had to talk it through with my elderly neighbours . A door to door survey would have been better but I suppose paying someone would have been a step too far ,although how much must the leaflets have cost to produce .

A leaflet to every household gives the people who live there a direct way of getting their points across.

 

It's difficult to do door to door surveys at a time when you would catch everyone, so inevitably some would miss out. There is of course a cost implication too.

 

There are pros and cons to every method of communication. You have to bear in mind the purpose of the consultation, which, when a scheme is proposed, is to give decision makers a flavour of local opinion on the overall proposal and to give local people a way of getting across detailed points.

 

The initial consultation is usually accompanied by a public meeting, which gives people the chance to make their points directly. There are of course community assembly meetings at which points can also be brought up.

 

The consultation methods used here are pretty much in line with what I see in other places. One of the problems is that carrying out very-in-depth public engagement takes a lot of time and costs significant amounts of money.

 

How do you spend the limited amount of money you have, talking about things or doing things? There is always a balance to be struck and you can always argue either way, there is no "right" answer.

[Dan_Ashcroft]

Judging by commentators on here it looks like most disagree with the scheme.

 

But as they are not in agreement with the councils views their views don't count, do they?

 

Everyone in the area disagrees with it.

 

But the council have had their budgets cut by government, so instead of cutting back their excesses, like they are supposed to, they're trying to maintain their spendthrift ways by introducing extra taxes.

 

Provision of parking used to be a service, now its become a backdoor tax.

[Planner1]

Everyone in the area disagrees with it.

And where is your documented proof of this?

 

Provision of parking used to be a service, now its become a backdoor tax.

Permit schemes are an additional service. The Council do not have any statutory duty to provide them, so, those who benefit have to pay. That will apply to more and more services which used to be free as cuts to budgets continue to bite.