Dulwich Village residents will pay up to £300 to park their cars annually – as Southwark Council revs up its controlled parking zone (CPZ) programme.
The CPZ would require residents to have car parking permits – with prices varying depending on their cars’ environmental impact.
Locals have been asked to say what hours they’d like the resident’s permits to operate – but some people are opposed to the scheme entirely.
It’s one of many CPZs Southwark Council is rolling out across the borough as it pushes for 100 per cent CPZ coverage by August 2024.
Local anti-LTN campaigner and former Conservative candidate for Dulwich Village Clive Rates (pictured) is one of many campaigners angry about the consultation.
He has asked whether there’s any point in a consultation that doesn’t give residents an option to say ‘no’ to the CPZ.
“Southwark is determined to install controlled parking everywhere in the borough. You will be ‘consulted’ – but you won’t be able to say ‘no thanks’,” he said.
Southwark Council sees CPZs as a key way of discouraging “the ownership and use of polluting private cars”.
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It also hopes the schemes will make the streets more accessible for non-drivers, encourage cycling and promote biodiversity.
However, some have questioned whether Southwark Council has a political mandate for its plans given there was no mention of controlled parking zones in Labour’s 2022 local manifesto.
Cllr James McAsh, Southwark’s cabinet member for streets, argues that its 2019 Movement Plan clearly stated the council’s aim to “introduce a borough-wide CPZ’.
But Clive Rates said the plan’s consultation spoke with a “tiny number of respondents to it, who weren’t even asked about controlled parking”.
He added that the plan has now been replaced with the ‘Streets for People’ plan – which also fails to mention CPZs.
Cllr James McAsh said: “Local people have repeatedly told the council that they want us to improve air quality, address the climate emergency, and make our borough even greener and safer.
“Introducing permits is an essential part of us achieving these things, and permit schemes have proven to be very successful in other parts of the borough.
“We understand that some people have concerns, and we are working on the ground to try to address those but this is a borough-wide initiative.”
Elsewhere in Southwark, consultation recently closed on the Queen’s Road and Nunhead CPZs.
In Nunhead, some residents branded the consultation “shambolic” with some businesses warning it would force them to close.
