| Topic: | Reply | |
| Posted by: | Gordon Southwell | |
| Date/Time: | 06/03/25 09:44:00 |
Census data from 2021 shows that 63.2% of households in the borough of Ealing own at least one car or van. It is probably wrong in any case to make a binary distinction between motor vehicle owners and non-motor vehicle owners as the latter still can still generate a lot of road traffic depending on life style. On the issue of traffic wardens and targets, you have to have some sympathy for the council as issuing tickets is the primary function of staff and does need to be tracked. However, the council's claim that the dispute is between Greener Ealing and the union is laughable they (or more accurately we) own 100% of the company and if it isn't democratically accountable there is a major problem. The council therefore needs to be absolutely scrupulous in demonstrating that the primary purpose of parking enforcement isn't revenue raising and the evidence appears to be that they can't currently do this. It is becoming increasingly apparent that this is a vital source of extra revenue for a cash strapped council but this is a very dangerous dependency. It effectively operates as a very regressive tax as those who pay the most tend to be those who use a vehicle as part of the way they earn a living. These kinds of jobs are not the highest paid. These days non-ownership of a car is often a sign of relative privilege rather than disadvantage as it is an option available to desk-based professionals. The current strategy of enforcements seems to be targeting easy wins where wardens know signage is confusing and punishing de minimis offences rather than concentrating on genuinely anti-social parking. The council urgently needs to set out priorities for parking enforcement to return to its original pledge that taking it in-house would tackle hot-spot areas where safety is being compromised by bad parking. This policy would deem it a success if no tickets were issue at school pick up times for instance as the presence of wardens would have deterred it. Where wardens are subject to intimidation, the council should never tolerate this and support its staff in their role of making us safer and ensuring that everyone has to follow the rules. |