Tag: parking

Wanstead news roundup, 30.6.11; Parking, unpaid council tax, Wanstead Flats’ approval

• More than £4m of council tax payments went uncollected in Redbridge in the last financial year, the Evening Standard has reported. It makes a total of £16.1m uncollected since 1993. Redbridge was 14th in a table of all London boroughs.

• A debate about the strongly-opposed plans to introduce pay-and-display parking in central Wanstead and residents’ permits in surrounding roads will now take place at Redbridge Borough Council, following the presentation of petitions with more than 4,000 signatures. Details in the Wanstead Guardian (but not on its website).

• MPs have passed plans to site a temporary Olympic police base on Wanstead Flats (see here at BBC Democracy Live). Campaigners say they will now seek judicial review.

• The fledgling Wanstead TV will be holding a webcast on Sunday from the High Street during the Farmers’ Market. It will be available on the Wanstead TV website at http://e11.tv/jGyq2W

Wanstead news roundup, 14.5.11; Driving, sauna, parking

• Wanstead driving test centre has the lowest pass rate of any centre in the country, says the Wanstead Guardian. It’s not quite true – figures from the DSA show Thornbury centre to be marginally worse – but it’s still very very low. The paper says low incomes are to blame, but that doesn’t seem to ring true somehow. Other explanations welcome.

• The bosses of the Wanstead Sauna have been jailed for a total of three-and-half years for conspiracy to control prostitution.

• A campaign against proposed parking changes on streets in central Wanstead has been launched. Details on poster below (click image for larger version).

Snaresbrook parking up 66%

Daily parking rates at Snaresbrook Tube are going up from £2.70 to £4.50 from Saturday, a poster at the station is informing drivers. Other car parks run by NCP for London Underground will also see price rises, and the company says it is to fund continued investment in the facilities, but a statement given to the Wanstead Guardian said that the decision followed research into the prices of surrounding car parks too.

Since there aren’t any other car parks near Snaresbrook station, it means the only competing option for many drivers will be on-street parking. Restrictions near the high street – including the cunning ban on parking between 9.30am and 10.30am – seem to make inevitable a degree of increased pressure on unrestricted streets further from the station.

Parking dispute becomes a row. Almost.

Wanstead blogger Mark Samuels has recounted in literary style his dispute with the South Woodford Waitrose over a £25 parking fine he received for overstaying the two hour limit – even though he spent all of that time in the shop.

But he writes that even though it’s left him “angry and push[ed] me to write a load of stuff on my blog about how disappointed I am”, he’s not going to change his shopping habits. “I’m not going to cut off my nose to spite my face; I like your shops,” he tells them.

Uh oh. Parking charges

On-street parking charges on their way to Wanstead? Library to be the thin end of the wedge. Wanstead Guardian story has details.

The library in Spratt Hall Road will be the first in the borough to introduce parking charges in a money raising scheme that will also see charges introduced for parking in streets around public parks in Redbridge.

*There is, however, a brief window of parking opportunity. Details here.