Council leaders have hit back at criticism that massive price hikes for permits in Residents’ Parking Zones (RPZs) will move the problem on to neighbouring areas. Bristol City Council cabinet approved the huge increases on Tuesday (May 6), along with a wholescale review of the entire scheme later this year.
Opposition Green councillors say the immediate impact will be to displace parking issues to residential streets just outside the zones as drivers try to avoid the higher charges – which are rising by up to 500 per cent – while still keeping their vehicles and not making the “mode change” to other forms of transport. But cabinet member for transport Cllr Don Alexander (Labour, Avonmouth & Lawrence Weston) refuted the claim, insisting the cost increases would persuade many owners to ditch the car and that councillors should have “more belief in human goodness”.
The changes, coming into force this summer, include axing the discounts for low-emission vehicles – those below 100g CO2, mainly electric vehicles, are currently free while those between 101g and 110g CO2 are half price. Permits for second cars will double in price from £112 to £224, and those for third vehicles increased from £224 to £560.
Read more: Is this the end for RPZs as council hikes permit charges and orders major review
In the central parking zone, the cost of permits will leap from £50 to £250. Cllr Martin Fodor (Green, Redland) told the cabinet meeting: “People have been seeking support to manage parking in their unsafe and chaotic streets for many years and they have been waiting for the promises of corner protection and dealing with rogue parking for years.
“What this report does is charge more for some vehicles. What it will do is cause displacement of those vehicles to be stored in neighbouring areas immediately if people don’t pay the higher fees, so there will be an immediate problem with the knock-on effect of the new charges because people will want to store their vehicles while they have them.”
He said the measures would mean “consequences and displacement” but no solutions from the Labour administration. “All we know is that there will be knock-on effects without solutions, and people will be worried about that,” Cllr Fodor said.
Cllr Alexander replied: “I don’t believe that everyone who has a second or third car when faced with an increased bill will just park it down the road somewhere. Many of them will actually decide that this is the time to change mode and move to active travel.
“Cllr Fodor’s views are deeply conservative. We need to have more ambition and more belief in human goodness.”
Those comments prompted Bristol’s former mayor George Ferguson, who introduced RPZs in 2013, to respond on Twitter the following morning. He wrote: “What planet is @BristolDon on? My experience is that petrol heads are generally amongst the least kind to [the] planet, people and all living creatures!”
Cllr Alexander told cabinet that the forthcoming major review would gather evidence not currently available to see how effective or not RPZs actually were. He said: “We need to know are these working to achieve the outcomes that we want.
“What we do know is that zones encourage short car journeys within them because they allow people to keep their cars, who wouldn't necessarily need to keep a car, for rather a cheap cost. The growth of development in the city centre creates pressure on the zones as well as discriminating between new residents and old, and traffic levels in the city centre have not been successfully reduced.
“RPZs are an outdated approach and our direction of travel is liveable neighbourhoods and building homes in sustainable central locations. The constant calls for more RPZs without evidence is moving a problem around without a real solution.
“After almost a decade of the zones being in place it’s important we take the opportunity to reevaluate the role they play.”
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