Whether or not you drive or will need to apply for a parking permit, these proposals will affect everyone who lives, works or travels in the neighbourhoods where we manage on-street parking and surrounding areas. Your opinion about all of our proposals matters, and we would like to hear from everyone.
These proposed changes to our on-street parking permit schemes follow the adoption of our Parking Strategy. They support a number of strategies which aim to rebalance the use of our streets, in favour of cyclists and pedestrians, and improve our environment for everyone:
- Improving air quality in the shortest possible time, through incentives to reduce the use of more polluting vehicles in order to secure the safer movement of pedestrian traffic on the highway, by reducing the public health risks posed by air pollution
- Encouraging active ways to travel such as walking, cycling and use of public transport. This is to help reduce vehicle emissions and improve air quality and general wellbeing for all
- Our aims for Liveable Neighbourhoods
Permits you may want to buy
Even if you don't drive or don't keep a car, if you live in a residents' parking zone, you may still want to buy Visitor Permits for car drivers who come to your home. We currently offer both digital hourly permits and paper full-day permits. Where paper permits are available, we are proposing to introduce paper half-day permits, to give greater flexibility to those who cannot use digital permits. These proposals should make it easier to use permits, and to avoid paying for parking time that isn't needed.
We are also proposing a modest increase in daily charges for visitor parking, the first time we have done this since 2013. Increases will be phased in over three years, with a 50p per day rise in year one, followed by 25p per day rises in years two and three.
The impact of changes to other permits
We are proposing encourage people to switch to cleaner vehicles, by linking the cost of Residents' Parking Permits to the CO2 emissions of the vehicle. This will mean rises in cost for diesel and high engine capacity cars, and reductions for cars which offer zero emissions.
The changes we are proposing to make Residents' Parking Permits emissions-based will reduce misuse and resale, and so reduce circulating traffic and improve the amount of space on the road. This should promote a cleaner and safer environment for cyclists and pedestrians.
Our proposed changes to Hotel, Guest House and Holiday Lets Parking Permits will take hospitality guest parking off residential streets, and bring the cost of this in line with visitor parking in city centre areas, in line with our wider Transport Strategy and policy to encourage sustainable transport choices.
Moving a number of professional parking permits to a digital format should also reduce misuse, and may make it easier for us to inform parking space provision planning in the longer term for those who are providing vital services.