Southwark Council has said it will send out 8000 letters to Dulwich Village residents about the proposed Controlled Parking Zone (CPZ), after it faced criticism for allegedly missing some houses.
The authority’s lead on the proposal also pledged to extend the consultation period.
At a cabinet meeting this week, (Wednesday 17 January) a group of residents brought up their concerns over the current consultation for a CPZ in their area.
Southwark Council was previously set on introducing one borough-wide but scrapped the proposals last November.
However, the Labour-run authority is still considering CPZs in Dulwich Village, Nunhead and Queen’s Road – albeit smaller, more ‘focused’ zones than first planned.
On 11 December, a consultation was launched on a controlled parking zone in Dulwich Village. Bridget Furst, who lives there, expressed her worry that not everyone was informed in good time.
Addressing Cllr James McAsh – who has spearheaded the proposals – at the meeting, she said: “This important consultation was launched just before the Christmas holidays with children off school and everyone busy.
She then referenced the way it had been advertised as being ‘haphazard’, claiming it consisted of “scattered hand-delivered booklets to some but not all houses on every road.”
“I didn’t receive one,” she claimed, “other people here didn’t and I only managed to look at the booklet yesterday when a friend lent me hers.”
Ms Furst said she was ‘very concerned’ that ‘a significant number’ of residents had not received the information and therefore had not had a fair chance to take part.
The consultation was set to close on Sunday (21 January) but it has been granted a seven-long extension bringing it to 28 January.
As well as granting the extension, Cllr James McAsh, Cabinet Member for Climate Emergency, Streets and Clean Air said: “We will also write to every resident, every house which is about 8000 households in those areas. And we’re going to write to them using a different service to the one we used before.
He added: “That’s not to say the one before was wrong, but it means that maybe if they were missing out some, perhaps these will miss out different ones or hopefully miss out no one at all.”