Havering council is facing bankruptcy1 and has a reckless budget proposal. The maintenance of 30 minutes free parking in Hornchurch and Upminster is expensive2 and untenable. Worse, there’s no evidence that it helps shopkeepers, which is, allegedly, the justification for the policy.
Havering council’s free car parking policy is gesture politics. It’s claimed that shoppers demand free parking or shopkeepers will suffer along with the borough. The evidence is that the cost of car parking is less important than access to good quality parking. This is especially the case where shopping centres are pedestrianised or where cars have restrictions placed on them,
“Studies from the UK found an increase in trading of up to 40% across a number of pedestrianised sites.”3
Additionally, the other car parking proposals make the policy quixotic. The council intends to create £3 million of additional revenue. There will be charges for Sunday car parking, and increases for on and off-street parking, parking permits and in parks.4 Car parking charges in parks is a blow to the principal leisure activity for residents. (It could be halved if the 30 minutes charge was abandoned.)
Does anyone believe this policy will survive the bankruptcy solutions of Government Commissioners?
Notes
1 Havering’s Impending Bankruptcy: The Road to Disaster (part one) – Politics in Havering
2 Council passes Havering budget for 2023/24 | The London Borough Of Havering It cost £650K in lost revenue in 2023-4. This will increase to about £750K in 2024-5.
4 (Public Pack)Agenda Document for Cabinet, 08/11/2023 19:30 (havering.gov.uk)
Politics in Havering 
As the saying goes,
“There is no money”.
If (government mandated) spending on statutory things like social care exceeds the (government mandated) limits on Council Tax, it can only end one way. If not this year (and there are horrible stories nationwide), then soon.
Everything else- whether free parking or Sunday markets- is displacement activity, talking about relative loose change.
Who in their right mind would want to run a council right now?
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The Austerity programme was predicated on off-loading expenditure to councils. At no point have they ever accepted the challenges, for councils, of *demand led services*. Councils literally can’t set adult and children services budgets with any degree of certainty because a single child can hole it beneath the waterline.. Mandated expenditure make budget setting a joke. The overwhelming amount of commitments are set by government with statutory duties.
It looks as if there is point of no return which has been reached where the totality of the councils finances will be swallowed up in two statutory services.
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