Healthy neighbourhood: some residents have been receiving reminders that they need to renew their exemption permits
Croydon Council is sending out renewal notice reminders for their “Healthy Neighbourhood” schemes.
The resident exemption permits last for three years. You can get up to three permits per household.
“If you live in a Healthy Neighbourhood, you can get a permit so you can drive through the area,” the council says.
Jason Perry, when seeking people’s votes in 2022 to get him elected as Croydon Mayor, promised to clear the borough of LTNs – low traffic neighbourhoods – and the like “on Day One”. More than three years later, the traffic calming, rat-run reducing and air quality improving restrictions remain in place.
The Healthy Neighbourhood areas are:
- Albert Road
- Dalmally Road
- Elmers Road
- Holmesdale Road
- Parsons Mead
- Sutherland Road
“You can still access roads and properties in these neighbourhoods,” the council says.
But they warn: “If you do not have a permit and are not exempt, you will need to take a different route to get to your destination”, or you risk being named by one of the council’s all-seeing automatic number-plate recognition cameras – ANPR – and being handed a hefty fine.
To be eligible for a resident’s exemption permit, you must:
- live in a property in a Healthy Neighbourhood zone
- be on the electoral register or Council Tax record
Open roads: LTN schemes – ‘healthy neighbourhoods’ – often used planters. Now most are fitted with ANPR cameras
Some residents say that the renewal reminders that they have received through the post, ostensibly from the “digital-first” council, have been a cause of confusion.
“The envelopes don’t look like they are from Croydon Council, and the letter inside does not directly reference what the reminder is for,” said one resident affected by the Albert Road scheme in South Norwood.
“I’m not sure if they are sending out email reminders.”
And they add: “The letter points you to http://www.croydon.gov.uk/parking/parking-permits, but from this page there is no direct link to the renewal page.”
It gets worse. “Finally, once you renew, you may find that there is a mismatch between the scheme you are registered for and the scheme referenced on the confirmation email.”
To avoid any unnecessary fines and a needless appeal, you might want to check your permit status.
This https://www.croydon.gov.uk/parking/exemption-permits/healthy-neighbourhoods-exemption-permits/apply-resident-exemption-permit appears to be the best place to go on the council’s website to check on whether you need a permit extension.
Good luck…
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There doesn’t seem any particular reason why Dalmally Road has been made a ‘healthy’ street, other than being next to an MP office. Also, it’s well signed when entering one side, if you go the other way it’s extremely poorly signed and designed to catch people out. It’s almost like many of these LTNs often have nothing to do with health and are just a sly way of ripping people off.
Dalmally Road became a Healthy Neighbourhood Street in May 2020. Natasha Irons was elected MP in July 2024. There are large signs indicating the short stretch of the road that is not open to motorised rat runners but is still accessible to buses, taxis and local motorists.
Almost like you don’t know that it’s the same office that Sarah Jones used before. Feel free to look on street view, there’s one small sign from the other side. I wouldn’t even consider it a road for ‘rat running’, it’s more convenient using the adjacent roads. Maybe LTNs shouldn’t allow local motorists, then the residents on the road can really decide how much they like them or not.
It’ll only catch out drivers who are too busy looking at their phones to notice where they’re going
I spent the day shadowing a team of traffic cops out of Catford recently and it was truly astonishing how many people were using their phones while driving.
They spent a few hours nicking people on the A2 and, if we didn’t have something else to do, they could have easily spent all day doing it.
A lot of stupid people in this country
Selfish, as well as stupid
Does anyone actually roadtest these procedures?
Or is it just a 6th form project?
We’ve seen better 6th form projects.
Myself and my neighbours got no reminders at all. Luckily I had put into my calendar. When I tried to renew I discovered that I hadn’t actually been sent a permit when this started, just an email saying I had one. Without the permit number I couldn’t renew! Copious emails later over several weeks (when our permits had already expired) and I finally got the permits. Croydon Council are impossible to deal with and completely inadequate.
Think incompetent is the word, Ruth.