In January, Cleveland Conservative Cllr, John Popham asked the Labour Council to explain their plans to replace Stop and Shop parking with pay and Display at all local shop parades in the borough.
The response he got was, residents will have to register with the council in order to be able to use the new pay and display system which will only be able to be used with their mobile phones.
Even if they are only stopping off for a couple of minutes to buy something, they will have to register that stay with their mobile phone showing their time of arrival in the parking bay.
Their would still be a free period, but you still had to register your stay. Cleveland Cllrs, John Popham, Isobel Grant and Greg Stafford started a petition against these changes because of the obvious damage the changes would do to their Local shops and have been successful in forcing the council to change their poorly thought through plans.
Now the council have decided that you don't have to register if you only use the free period, but if you want to stay longer, you will have to register.
The new plans are still daft and unfair to local shops. For example, in Northolt Mandeville where the free period is 2 hours, you will be able to stay a maximum of four hours. How will it help local shops to have the same car taking up a space outside their shop for four hours.
If you stay longer than the free period, you can only do this with a mobile phone. It will cost £1.80 plus a 20p charge. The Labour council are dressing this up as help for local shops.
Most residents will see straight through this. It is a money raising exercise by a Labour Council who see parking as their cash cow. They have form here.
In 2006 when we took over control of the council from Labour, they were issuing almost 400,000 parking tickets a year in Ealing. Over the four years we ran the council, we got this down to below 200,000.
This figure is now on the rise again, and will go even higher once these changes are introduced. Watch out.