Volunteers in the borough’s hard-pressed residents’ associations were given less than six hours’ notice of the switch-off of Croydon’s parking meters.
By JEREMY CLACKSON, motoring correspondent
No alternative: parking meters have all been turned off today, with less than six hours notice to the public
In the latest controversial move by Jason Perry, the borough’s Conservative Mayor, Croydon Council has turned off hundreds of parking meters today, forcing motorists to download the RingGo app to their mobile phones, or otherwise face a trek around the streets in the hope of finding a shop offering online payment facilities.
The big switch-off should have happened last month, but it was delayed by an intervention by Tory Perry to try to avoid any antipathy among voters in Croydon South and risking Chris Philp’s parliamentary seat in the General Election.
In the end, Philp scraped home by little more than 2,000 votes, but it could be the Council Tax-payers of Croydon who end up picking up the tab for this piece of party political gamesmanship by Perry.
The council’s narrative is that it has to shutdown the parking meters because they operate on out-dated 3G technology. The real reason is that the new system will help the cash-strapped council pocket even more in parking fees.
The switchover has gone ahead despite generally negative responses from residents in public consultations. Older motorists, and people who simply don’t want to be forced into being monitored by a third-party smartphone app, have had their serious reservations ignored by Perry (catchphrase: “I’m listening”) and his council.
Late notice: the letter from the council’s six-figure salaried head of highways and parking, Jayne Rusbatch, distributed to residents’ associations just hours before the switch-off
At least now, council officials are admitting that using RingGo can carry additional charges for motorists, after piss-poor Perry and his councillors spent months denying that this would be the case.
There is more than a sense, too, that after delaying the changeover, it is now being implemented in something of a disorganised hurry. Residents’ associations across the borough were sent an email last night at 6.15pm, advising of the parking meter switch-off today.
The email was issued by the council’s head of highways and parking, Jayne Rusbatch.
Or, as she has now been dubbed by volunteer resident officials who have had their patience tested once too often: “Jayne Rushed-batch”, as they have been expected to relay the council’s messaging to thousands of local members.
“Professional council staff, some of whom are paid six-figure salaries, are full-time employees,” said one RA official.
“We are not, and we do our residents’ association work in our spare time. To send out a letter such as this with virtually zero notice is unacceptable, and demonstrates the arrogance with which the council regards the residents it is supposed to serve.
“This ‘Jayne Rushed-batch’ caused me to change my plans for Monday evening, as I had to pass on her short-notice announcement to our members.
“I hope no one gets caught out with a £65 fine tomorrow, or in the coming days, simply because the council has switched to the system that none of our residents wanted, and they have no yet got the smartphone app.”
Under the new system, motorists need to book in with RingGo, even if they are using a district centre’s free parking period.
New parking fees were introduced on July 16 – with massive increases in charges for people driving electric vehicles, after Perry, the borough’s pro-pollution Mayor, reduced the discount that had been introduced to help reduce the borough’s carbon emissions.
“This change looks more than a bit like Perry being petty and petulant, a bad loser… a spolit brat,” according to a Katharine Street source.
“The Mayor ran a Facebook campaign opposing ULEZ. Now he has overseen the change of parking charges in the borough which penalises motorists using zero-emissions vehicles.”
In her email last night, council official Rushed-batch wrote: “From tomorrow, Tuesday 23 July 2024, we will be switching off the pay and display machines in local and district centres where we have free one-hour machines. The machines in central Croydon are already switched off.”
And Rushed-batch continued: “The council’s new parking charges offer a balanced approach for parking, taking into consideration all vehicle types, while still recognising the environmental impacts of vehicles, and retains the emission-based parking charges for on-street parking. With the changing vehicle fleet since 2019, the uptake of electric vehicles has increased and as such the council has reviewed the discount offer for this vehicle type.”
In a letter which was attached to the Rushed-batch email, she has written, “Whilst the council does not charge for using RingGo, some default settings may mean that you pay a small charge to RingGo for reminders.” Thus contradicting what Perry and his council cabinet members had originally maintained, that there were no extra charges.
“These notifications can be easily disabled in the app settings,” the local bureaucrat advised in her letter.
For those that do not have a smartphone, parking sessions can still be secured by phone, by calling 020 3046 0010 – an additional facility which was not available during the trial period.
“We understand that change can be difficult but please be reassured that we are making every effort to ensure that the transition to mobile payment parking is as smooth as possible,” wrote the council official who had just given thousands of the borough’s residents less than six hours notice of the big switch-off.
That letter from Rushed-batch was also dated July 22, although it referred to the removal of some of the parking meters and the switch-off beginning on July 13 – nine days earlier.
Bigger slice: Mayor Jason Perry’s parking charges are likely to increase costs for motorists
But this might have all happened before the end of June, were it not for political considerations around the election.
Sources at Fisher’s Folly maintain that the delay in the switchover and removal of the parking meters was made after the intervention of the Tory Mayor, as Perry was “worried about the detrimental impact the parking changes might have on Philp’s cause”.
They say that work on the changeover was due to begin on Monday June 24, but Perry pulled the plug the Friday beforehand.
“Someone from Tory HQ must have thought that hugely unpopular changes to the local parking scheme might not go down too well with the voting public, and ordered the Mayor to do what he could.”
Council sources suggest that there could be significant additional costs as a consequence.
There are almost 700 parking meters dotted around Croydon. The council had a contract with a company called Flowbird that supplies the machines’ network and software. The contract was expiring – believed to be ending on June 30. “That has now had to be extended to cope with the delay,” according to our sources.
Croydon’s Conservatives, still with one MP, will be delighted at the end result.
Read more: Perry puts workplace parking charges proposal to cabinet
Read more: MP calls on Met to investigate Tories’ ‘vile cesspit’ groups
Read more: Perry should apologise for anti-ULEZ Facebook group says MP
Read more: Perry slow to stop cars parking in town centre pedestrian zone
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ROTTEN BOROUGH AWARDS: In January 2024, Croydon was named among the country’s rottenest boroughs for a SEVENTH successive year in the annual round-up of civic cock-ups in Private Eye magazine
I wrote to our local Councillor asking how the rules apply to Blue Badge holders. Can we park for free, do we have to pay Ring-Go even for a free space, etc. He didn’t bother to reply, perhaps he couldn’t find out the answers?
Name and shame
More evidence of the partiality and bias of the Mayor of all of Croydon. The survival of the Tory Party is the only consistent interest of Croydon’s Tories. What sort of half baked system works on only providing a few hours notice of a major upheval for an essential service to so many people after conveniently postponing it before hand with little notice too. Yup that’s the way Tories manage public services.
Part-time piss-poor porkie pies Perry does listen. To the people who tell him what he wants to hear. The rest of us he ignores. It’s called confirmation bias
Croydon Labour, Croydon Conservative, no matter, all crap. Say whatever you want to hear to get your vote, then do as they please when in office.
On a more positive note, I like Ringo, you can add money to the meter from wherever you are via your phone if you need to stay longer. It would help if every council would use the same app tho.
Philp and Petty are both Tories but it’s absurd to suggest they are ‘mates’. Think about it for a minute and see if you can imagine either entertaining the other at a dinner party! Or in a pub. Not going to happen
Is this a Perry remark?
No, Derek.
He said “councillor”. Perry’s much more important than that… (in his own little mind, anyway)