The generation of Croydon residents who have always thought RingGo was the drummer in The Beatles could be in for a nasty, and expensive, shock if they park their car in New Addington, Purley or Addiscombe come the new year, reports KEN LEE, our Town Hall correspondent
Despite hundreds of objections raised during and after a previous trial, Croydon Council is pushing ahead with the introduction of cashless parking in three more neighbourhoods – Purley, Addiscombe and New Addington – from next week, January 2.
Mayor Jason Perry claims to “listen to Croydon”, but he’s cocked a deaf ‘un as far as parking schemes are concerned, ignoring all the public complaints about being forced to use smartphone apps to pay fees during a previous test run in South Croydon.
And his council also left the announcement of their latest trials until the week before Christmas. There’s not as much as a word about these short-notice, quick-turnaround trials in the “news” section on the council’s own website today.
Fantasy: the cashless parking trial on Selsdon Road in South Croydon was successful, but only in terms that Croydon Council understands
Anyone from other parts of the borough driving to the trial areas in January could end up being hit with a massive parking fine, just because our cash-strapped council didn’t bother to publicise its imposition of these unpopular schemes.
Some businesses received letters, signed by “head of highways and parking” Jayne Rusbatch, and dated December 21 – just a day before the council was due to close down for the Christmas holidays.
In the letter, the increasingly ludicrous-sounding council said that cashless parking was part of its “ambitions for supporting the economic vibrancy of town centres and high streets”.
They also claimed that the schemes will somehow “improve” parking availability. This is to be achieved by reducing the one-hour free parking under current rules and replacing it with a 30-minute free parking period, which the council reckons will “encourage more turnover”. For that, read, “more fines and income”.
Motorists are being forced to use the RingGo smartphone parking app – even if they don’t own a smartphone or don’t want to share their personal data with an anonymous, third-party supplier.
The reality of all this gung-ho “vibrancy” bollocks is that the cash-strapped council is having to replace its pay-and-display machines, which rely on 3G connectivity which is being shut down by network providers. The council grumbles that the old machines present “increasing maintenance costs”.
Effectively handing the borough’s motorists’ personal and bank account details to RingGo is the cheapest and least troublesome solution for a local authority that lacks the means to deliver public services properly.
The trials in Purley, Addiscombe and New Addington are to last only three weeks – since the decision to roll out cashless parking across the borough is already a done deal, it’s a wonder that they are bothering with a trial at all. It is notable that the three trials are not subject to any formal consultation.
Late notice: the council letter was only sent on the day before the offices closed for the Christmas break, giving businesses and the public no real chance to raise questions
Running all this for piss-poor Perry is his cabinet member for streets and environment, the ever-eager Scott Roche, a Tory Party uber-loyalist, whose day job is working for Conservative MP Paul Scully.
Roche will soon have to break cover on the mess that pro-motorist Perry has made of the council’s badly implemented cycle lanes and low-traffic neighbourhoods (or whatever they’ve been re-branded this week), following a rigged “public consultation”. The council can ill-afford to refund the grants it received from the Tory Government and TfL for the schemes.
There’s a persistent rumour in Fisher’s Folly that all the money received for the Purley to Croydon cycle lane has in any case already been spent, much of it squandered on paying contractors to remove the safety wands just days after they had been installed, in an effort to ensure that the scheme failed.
So dealing with cashless parking issues swiftly in the New Year might be a bit of administrative expedience, at the inconvenience of residents and businesses in the trial areas.
“Cashless parking where drivers book time using their mobile phones or using the PayPoint facility in some shops, as an alternative system, will ensure the continued viability of the parking service,” the council claims.
Loyal Tory: Scott Roche is pushing through the unpopular cashless parking
The council’s lack of any real confidence in their trials operating smoothly is betrayed in its announcement which explains the January 2 start date as being, “So that this does not impact on businesses during the vital Christmas trading period…”.
If the system operated smoothly, you’d think there would be no possibility of any adverse “impact” on any business at any time of the year. One of the biggest objections to the scheme so far is that 30 minutes is not a long enough free parking period for anyone to carry out a shopping trip.
Among the other gems offered by the council as it rushes out the trial is the advice “to set up the app on your phone whilst at home”. What? You don’t think it’s a great idea to be using the phone while driving..?
The biggest, most obvious, shortcoming of the cashless system is that it automatically discriminates against those who do not have a mobile phone – the already digitally excluded older and poorer residents. There will also be a sizeable number of people who simply don’t want to have the bother, or intrusion, of another app just for the relatively simple function of parking their vehicle.
The council says, “Parking sessions can be booked with an old-style mobile phone by phoning 020 3046 0010 and confirming your details and the RingGo location code, which are indicated on signs.
“It is easier to register your details online first at myRingGo.co.uk/register to ensure that the parking session goes smoothly.
“Parking sessions can also be booked on a landline but there would be no guarantee that there is a parking space available when arriving in a street or car park.” So that’s a busted flush then.
There is an alternative – using PayPoint in nearby shops. If, that is, you can find a shop that operates the service. But again, this is nowhere near as straightforward as using a parking meter.
And, of course, according to the council, you can comment on the trials. Thing is, they are not describing it as a “consultation”, because that would get all official, and require a proper equalities assessment, measuring how the cashless system disadvantages the poor, many of whom will be from BAME communities, as well as older residents.
Any major changes to parking arrangements in Croydon should be subject to each area’s own individual consultations before coming into effect, using parking data gathered from the streets. How the council might manipulate this data before making it available to the public, they have never said.
But don’t worry! The council offers its main switchboard number to phone if you have “any questions”. Even though, for at least nine of the 12 days between the date of the council’s letter and the RingGo trial going live, the council’s offices are actually closed.
In extremis, you might try this email address – parking@croydon.gov.uk. But if you don’t have a smartphone, that’s probably not much use, either… And council staff probably won’t be answering many, if any, emails between now and 2024, either.
Read more: Perry’s latest money-making wheeze? Big Brother parking
Read more: Perry’s back-pedalling furiously on Boris-backed bike scheme
Read more: Tory minister is member of online group that celebrates vandals
- Inside Croydon – as seen on TV! – has been delivering local community news since 2010. 3million page views per year in 2020, 2021 and 2022.
- If you want real journalism, actually based in the borough, you should consider paying for it. Please sign up today. Click here for more details
- If you have a news story about life in or around Croydon, or want to publicise your residents’ association or business, or if you have a local event to promote, please email us with full details at inside.croydon@btinternet.com
As featured on Google News Showcase
- Our comments section on every report provides all readers with an immediate “right of reply” on all our content
Inside Croydon is a member of the Independent Community News Network
- Inside Croydon works together with the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, as well as BBC London News and ITV London
ROTTEN BOROUGH AWARDS: Croydon was named among the country’s rottenest boroughs for a SIXTH successive year in 2022 in the annual round-up of civic cock-ups in Private Eye magazine
RingGo is the most widely used parking app and is widely in use across the country. It’s easy to add time if you are likely to be delayed which avoids the possibility of a fine. I find it difficult to believe there are many people out there who don’t have a smart phone. Collecting cash and banking is a notoriously expensive process so surely anything that saves money for a cash strapped council can only be a good thing. Another advantage of RingGo is that if your vehicle is lower emissions, then the parking charge in Croydon is reduced as well.
RingGo is widely-used but not everywhere – it doesn’t work in Greenwich, for example.
I know that this is a minority but neither my parents have smart phones but still drive.
You need to remember the name of the parking app, in this case RingGo.
Often you find notices inviting you to “Pay by Phone” without specifying which app you need. This is especially confusing as there is an actual PayByPhone app – which may or may not be the one for that location.
To find the name of the app, you are likely to have to search for one of the payment machines themselves, which states which app applies. Although in this case, since you can no longer use an actual payment machine, who knows where can you find the app named?
It’s worth noting that RingGo is the app for parking at the Fairfield Halls, where you will find groups of confused concert-goers trying to work out how to use it for the first time. Last time I parked there, I did indeed check while at home first that I had the RingGo app and that all the vital details – car registration, credit card – were up to date. When I arrived at Fairfield Halls and tried to use, it now demanded a password.
I had neglected a password to check the app at home – and it took me three goes to guess the right one.
Another problem at Fairfield Halls is that it’s often difficult to get a signal in the carpark, surrounded as it is by concrete walls, and you have to go outside to register your session. So good luck anyone who tries to park there!
Last summer, I got given a parking fine whilst standing in front of the parking machine trying to pay and figure out RingoApp. The officer didn’t bother to ask if it was my vehicle they were ticketing whilst I wasn’t looking.
They also initially rejected my appeal despite video evidence of me recording that the parking machine wasn’t accepting cashless payment and screenshot evidence to show that RingoApp wasn’t available on my non-UK Google Play account. So, any foreigners or Brits living abroad are going to get easily stung and no way to pay in certain areas.
Only after a lengthy process of writing to MPs did we get the fine rightly overturned.
30 minutes is not long enough. I certainly wouldn’t want to risk more than a quick dash around one shop, never mind a coffee or a haircut.
I don’t know about the other areas, but I imagine that in Addiscombe there will be no room in the co-op car park any more.
With RingGo, MiPermit and APCOA apps on my phone for the various locales in which I find myself; the small mercy for smart phone users here is that RingGo is by far the easiest and most intuitive of the three to use.
I like them as the hassle of collecting coins (usually kept in that most obsolete of car features, the pop out ashtray) for parking is/ was great, and the ability to select a work card to pay when able to expense parking on business is handy.
Yet I accept that, for non-smart phone users, there is little to no mercy (and in more areas – banking, train travel etc etc – than just parking these days).
Ringgo data has recently been hacked – names, addresses and other data stolen. Not for me!
950 UK users out of 19,000,000 total and no financial nor location data accessed.
You’d be little less compromised by paying for something by cheque.
And what does RingGo do with your personal details? How safe is the information of your phone in their hands?
It just looks like more mining of persanal information, which of course, is what all apps do.
Free parking for 30 minutes in some council bays, up to one hour in others. Free parking at the shopping sheds along the Purley Way. Heavily discounted parking charges if you’re rich enough to afford an all electric car or have a ‘low-emissions’ model.
Result? More people nipping to the shops in their cars. More traffic. More congestion. More delays. More fumes. More climate change.
And fewer people driving into Croydon town centre and using the North End shops because the multistorey car parks charge a few quid for the privilege of using their dank, smelly spaces.
And less parking revenue to spend on local transport schemes.
The road to hell is paved with so-called good intentions
Could the Council clarify how much extra we will be forced to pay for the ‘convenience’ of using RingGo, as in the West Wickham car parks you are charged a 20p setup fee? Another rip off of motorists disguised as an improvement!
Neither of my elderly parents had a smartphone until one of them finally got one during the pandemic just because they needed to have an app to go overseas. Neither have the foggiest idea how to find, install, and use new apps.
And if they’re going to insist on using RingoGo, then at least they have to make it available on Google Play stores worldwide or any Brits returning from abroad or foreigners that have a Google Play account in another country/region also won’t be able to find or use it, as I discovered last summer (and got fined whilst standing in front of a machine and trying to make payment).