The politician overseeing Southwark Council’s controversial policy to impose controlled parking zones (CPZs) across the entire borough without full consultation was cross-examined last week over a blog post he wrote saying no zone should be implemented without ‘the consent of residents’.
Cllr James McAsh, Cabinet Member for the Climate Emergency, Clean Air and Streets, was questioned at the most recent Southwark Council Assembly last Wednesday, July 12, about a blog he posted four years ago.
The campaigners against a proposed CPZ in Nunhead unearthed the blog from June 2019 as Southwark Council now pushes for 100 per cent CPZ coverage by August next year.
The CPZ would require residents to have car parking permits, paying up to £300 annually – with prices varying depending on their cars’ environmental impact.
Locals have just been asked to say what hours they’d like the residents’ permits to operate – but not whether they opposed the scheme entirely.
Dulwich Villagers to pay £300 to park their cars with new CPZ
In the blog posted on Cllr McAsh’s personal website in June 2019, years before he took up his cabinet post, he stated that a CPZ should only be implemented:
– with the consent of residents in any zone, and
– if the consultation can result in full implementation, full rejection, or partial implementation in a zone smaller than the consultation area.
The post also proposed that a smaller CPZ scheme would work, which is the complete opposite of the current plans.
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The current plans to implement a CPZ across the whole borough were set out in the Local Implementation Plan and the Movement Plan of March and April 2019.
When questioned by residents Cllr McAsh said his stance had changed following that policy announcement.
He said: “I want to be really really clear here, that the policy has changed so pointing out things I said before the policy had changed, when I described the previous policy isn’t a ‘gotcha’, because the policy has changed.”
However, the blog was in fact posted in June 2019, several weeks after the council said it wanted 100 per cent CPZ coverage across the borough.
This paper asked Cllr McAsh when he personally changed his mind on CPZs. Unfortunately, he has not responded.
He did tell the council assembly: “Our policy on controlled parking permits changed with the introduction of the Movement Plan in 2019, before the last election.” He added that the council were pushing ahead with the borough-wide plan, based on “fairness”, as well as to accommodate their aim – set out in their manifesto – to “improve air quality.”
“It cannot be that residents of Camberwell and Bermondsey have to pay for [parking] and people in Dulwich Village and Nunhead get that for free.” He commented that this would ultimately be “unfair and unjust.”
He added: “Frankly if we were to do a borough-wide consultation on whether Nunhead and Dulwich should have special treatment, I don’t think that the people in Bermondsey would return a very strong yes vote for that.”
Nunhead resident, Corin Burr, who is among 3,175 people who sign a petition opposing CPZ in the area, told us: “We’re not opposed to individual CPZs requiring them to solve a problem, but we are opposing a borough-wide one.”
Plans for a CPZ in Queen’s Road and in Dulwich Village have also seen people outraged that they cannot have the option to say ‘no’ to the scheme.
Mr Burr said that they are currently seeking legal advice – as they believe the council has acted “unlawfully.”
