Parking Places (Variation of Charges) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-25
Topic: Transportation
James McMahon (Labour, Centre-left): I refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, which notes that I am a serving member of Oldham Council. I thank the hon. Member for Bosworth (David Tredinnick) for promoting the Bill. To be honest, I felt at times during his speech that I was in a council committee meeting. I was pondering whether devolution in England could work if this is the level of debate in our Parliament. Nevertheless, parking charges are an important issue and are raised regularly by our constituents, so it is right that we consider them None of us should allow a picture to be painted that our councils are somehow, in an underhand way and against the public interest, trying to extract as much cash as possible from parking charges. The Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 is prescriptive on what the surplus can be used for; if there is a shortage of car parking spaces in towns, the money can be used to provide additional spaces and improvements. We need to remember that it is not a profit-making service. If a surplus is made, it is reinvested, and that is important Many towns and cities acknowledge that parking is an important facility. It is not just about people being able to get in and out, but about supporting the economies of our town and city centres, which are important. Review after review has highlighted the vulnerability of our high streets in particular, and we want to make sure that we give them as much support as possible The hon. Gentleman has listed activities and events that are organised in towns. The local authority in Oldham arranges a long list of town centre events that bring a lot of people into town. It ensures that parking charges are suspended for the duration of those events, so that people can get in and out freely and enjoy them. Our preference should be to give as much power, responsibility and accountability as we can to local councils and their communities to do what is right for their towns. I am inclined to think that Parliament should step back rather than continually introduce legislation, but it is only right that we support this Bill, given the spirit in which it is intended In my constituency, there are no parking charges in the town of Royton or in Chadderton. In Oldham town centre, which is the largest, serving a population of a quarter of a million people, the council decided to have free parking at weekends to encourage people to come into the town and spend money. After six o’clock, people can park on the streets as well—that is about supporting local restaurants and the new cinema that has opened in the town centre—and those decisions have public support However, the public also supported greater enforcement, particularly outside schools, where people were parking inconsiderately, blocking school access and potentially endangering children’s lives. It was therefore a great knock to the council and the local community when the then Government introduced legislation to restrict the CCTV vehicle from being able to catch offenders. That restriction means that, a staff member now has to sit in a car and see the parking rules being breached. It would have been far more efficient to allow the camera car to be placed on the pavement The camera car is loved by the children of Oldham. It has a name—Oscar—because of a competition in which young people were encouraged to come forward with their ideas about what the new enforcement car could be called. Seven-hundred and eighty youngsters took part across 17 schools, so there was great community spirit, and great demand was put on the council for that car. Parents wanted to know that there would be enforcement outside schools. If the community wants that and if the council is willing to act in response to the community interest, it should not be for this place to say that it cannot happen. That is why I tend to believe that we should allow local communities to do more for themselves, instead of always passing legislation to restrict and determine such things We need more clarity about what the Bill means by consultation and who needs to be consulted. That could be straightforward and involve the business improvement district board, which is easy to consult. A board meeting could be called—such meetings happen regularly anyway. The area of interest may be wider, with more people consulted and considered to have an interest. We need to understand what burdens may be involved. It would be ridiculous, would it not, if a council seeking to reduce car parking charges had to go through a prolonged consultation period to get to the number of people that it considered would be affected by that decision, when putting a notice in a newspaper would have been far easier. There will also be times when charges go up, but modestly, sometimes just in line with inflation. Would that require a large public consultation for people who would be affected? Just how large might that be? A bit of clarity on that would help during the next stage of the Bill.