Letters will be sent to “every resident, business, school and nursery in the affected area” says the council, and there will also be an online consultation and face-to-face interviews on the street.
The leader of the council, Councillor Jas Athwal, said: “Parking in Wanstead is a real problem, and we want to find a solution that is right for the area, that deals with the present and future pressures on parking spaces but also takes into account the needs of businesses, residents and shoppers.
“It is a very difficult balancing act, we have to take into account many factors and try and find the best way forward. We know that means we can’t please everybody but we have to do what we think is best for the whole area. We’re looking forward to sharing the consultation with everyone when it is ready.”
He said the consultation would be “full and thorough” and the results would be published online when the data has been collected. He said the results would be fed into a final report before a final decision was made.
Cllr Athwall made a public commitment at the Rovsco Hall public meeting that Aldersbrook and South Wanstead residents, outside of the potential ‘CPZ roads’ would be considered as part of the “affected area”, given our use of Wanstead as our local community shopping and business centre. I trust that this will indeed be delivered on by the Council as part of its plan for ‘exemplary consultation’. It will be useful if local residents in this area can continue to press to ensure that this is indeed the intention. [Previously the responsible Cabinet member [Cllr Howard] had maintained that we were not ‘affected’ and it would cost too much to inform or consult us – shameful and short sighted, but at least the Council now has the opportunity to correct that stance through its imminent consultation plans, in order to deliver Cllr Athwal’s public promise].
We are seeing the affects of restricted parking in Forest Gate and Leytonstone on the Lake House Estate. More and more vehicles are being left on Lake House Road and Centre Road. If permit or restricted parking continues to spread from Wanstead as well, the Lake House Estate will become a car park for out of towners. Therefore, what happens in Wanstead centre directly affects all of us and we definitely need to have our say in the consultation.
So what you are saying is that we should be a car park so you don’t have to be? Tough no. There’s plenty of residents who live her that want permits. These are the streets where we live and we get the say for our streets. If there’s too many people dumping cars where you are get your own permit system started via a consultation of your neighbours in which we, quite rightly, would have no say.
CPZ required on Lake House Estate too then? Would make some sense (lots of the homes have drives there anyway?)
Can’t wait for this one – high expectations of an ‘exemplary’ consultation and learning how it should be done!
Councillor Athwal said that we would have a “gold standard” consultation and residents would have input to the consultation plan that would be taken forward, our requests have been deliberately ignored – why because Councillors Athwal and Howard are determined that their plans will go in come what may.
It sounds as if we are going to get the same parking plans brought back with questionnaires being distributed. It is anticipated that the questions will be biased towards the Council views.
If it is such a “gold standard” consultation let us see the plan and the questions that will be asked in advance of any parking scheme coming back
Good news. My views on restricted parking aroundcrhe high street will make it a much nicer area for the majority who don’t drive there. Permits for the rest of Wanstead will be great in stopping my local roads being the car parks for commuters and shoppers who dump and tube.
I’m all for the original proposals and the consultation will be my chance to express this.
Absolutely agree with ‘Me’ – on every point!
“Parking in Wanstead is a real problem,…” I think he must be on another planet! Who is he kidding! In the areas proposed there is no to very little problem. I have never had problems parking in the proposed zones in Wanstead, including the high street which is arguably one of the busiest road to be included in the zones. Worst case if there is no space on the high street, I just park a mere 1-3 minutes walking distance away on a nearby road, which is very rare. They even included the end of Warren road where the Epping Forest entrance is! This is very clearly an attempt to “extract” more money by fixing a problem that doesn’t exist. We have enough real problems, so please dear council members deal with those and in the next election we will heartily vote for you.
I agree with ‘Me’ in general, although I still don’t understand why the current one hour parking restrictions hat are in place around the borough don’t prevent this from happening. Surely it’s far easier and cost-effective to drive around roads at set times and ensure there are no vehicles parked vs having to check each vehicle, individually, at all times of the day, to ensure they have a permit?