Southampton CC introduced permit parking for residents in areas where parking was an issue such as around the General Hospital. Each house could apply for two permits and then buy extra ones.

This was reduced to one permit before you had to buy further permits.

Now they want to charge £30 for every permit meaning if you want to park within a mile of the hospital you have to pay £30 even if you live there. I am writing with the original problem/solution/result triplet when they introduced the idea and need some more to explain the current situation. Please add your own triplets

Original
The problem was that local residents couldn’t park near their houses because of other people occupying the spaces.
The solution was to make the area permit parking only and give local residents permits.
The result was that residents could now park near their houses.

New one now they want to charge everyone
The problem is Southmpton Council is short of money and can’t raise council taxes without central government noticing
The solution is Introduce charges for residents parking permits
The result is no benefit for the residents or other members of the public who still won’t be able to park there

I get your point but £30 to park aint that bad in the grand scheme of things and the benefit is only you can park there and given the cost no one will have spares for friends

There is a lovely line in the letter explaining that the fee is necessary to cover the cost of administration of these new charges.

Lets re-read that.

1) We are going to introduce a new process of charging people to park.
2) This will cause work and cost money.
3) We will use the money we raise from the charges to pay for it.

How about, don’t introduce the process thus saving the costs so you don’t need the charges to raise the money?

As your first post s note there was a parking problem hence the need for permits.
The charge is just to make money I agree with that point
The benefit is you get to park in the street as no one else can.

Worth reading the recent barnet judgement

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2013/2089.html

and sticking in an FOI request for any data on the cost of administrating a parking permit.

sub-let your permit(s) to someone who works at the general; you’ll be quids in

Thanks ninfan I will check it out.

£30 isn’t a great deal but provides no additional benefit to what was already there which had solved the problem. This is a new charge which is not solving any public problem. It is simply a way of generating revenue which I am certain the FOI request will show is greater than the costs of administering the scheme and I am equally sure will increase every year from now on.

Southampton Council have previous form on this. The Itchen bridge replaced the old floating bridge and would have temporary toll booths while the initial costs were recovered. How long will they remain? Well they have just been replaced by a new automated system that costs more but only until the bridge is paid for (or hell freezes over, whichever is last)

scaredy pants – thought of this. Unfortunately so have they. You need to own the car that you apply for the permit for.

Even when we were allowed two permit I was only allowed one because my wife is not the registered owner of one of the cars. I suggested this was silly as my wife didn’t need to own a car to drive it and all our possessions were shared.

The lady in the parking services said I was a “bigoted pig” for not registering my cars in my wife’s name. Yes, the lady in question had short hair. 😉

They tried to do that in an area of Aylesbury my friend lived in. He thought it was a great idea until I questioned how long the prices would stay at their current (cheap) level. He and a couple of others then set out to fight against it.

They won by basically persuading enough residents of the same thing.

Guest tickets were also priced cheap-ish, but it soon dawned on people that if they had someone to stay for a couple of weeks it’d start to get expensive – plus tradesmen and the like.

Also issues with works vans’ too, as you needed a driver per vehicle, and his next-doors neighbours wife didn’t drive, but they had a (company) van and a family car.

“How about, don’t introduce the process thus saving the costs so you don’t need the charges to raise the money?”

Then residents are in the same position as they are now.

Do people really park and walk a mile to the hospital?

The lady in the parking services said I was a “bigoted pig” for not registering my cars in my wife’s name. Yes, the lady in question had short hair.

Well first off a complaint about being abused, that should easily cover the parking permits.

The Problem
Stuff costs money
The Solution
Charge People
The Result
We need more money but now have a cash cow

The reality spending is exceeding income, higher taxes are bad, cuts are bad, borrowing is bad.

Probably a few things that should go first. A FOI on bottled water for council meetings, travel expenses etc should be good to start with.
From 2012

Meanwhile, the TPA’s Pinhead of the Month for May is Cllr Richard Williams, who became leader of Southampton City Council after the local elections in the first week of May. Virtually his first act in his new role was to announce an increase in the size of the Cabinet from six councillors (as under the previous administration) to eight, meaning that an additional sum of more than £22,000 of taxpayers’ cash would have to be found in order to fund the special responsibility allowance for those holding the two additional posts.

The new posts were rubber stamped by Southampton City Council at its first meeting after the local elections on May 16th. However, events took a farcical turn barely a week later when one of the new appointees – Cllr Keith Morrell, Cabinet Member for efficiency and improvement – resigned. He is not expected to be replaced.
http://www.taxpayersalliance.com/?s=southampton&submit.x=-1218&submit.y=-167&submit=Search

Don’t charge for parking at the hospital. Therefore, people park at hospital and not on street…?

Seadog +1. It’s a nonsense. My wife works for the NHS and is expected to trawl about the region, from hospital to walk in clinic, to Surestart centre. There are usually about a dozen staff spaces and if they’re taken (they’re always taken) then she has to either pay or park a mile away and walk back with all her kit. And it’s a big kit.

Of course the problem is that if there’s no charge to park at the hospital, everyone will take the piss and use it as a park and shop plan. Less so with out of town hospitals but most are fairly central.

I guess the answer is to rebuild all hospitals out of town and offer free parking but that might require some, ahem, private financial initiatives…

The big question is whether the permit parking is enforced, if not it’s costing you for nothing. My MIL lives in Cardiff and has to pay for residents parking permits, doesn’t mean she can park anywhere near the house when non residents without discs take up all the spaces.

IIRC we paid a fair amount more in a London CPZ, when we lived there. It worked at stopping commuters parking outside and tubing it to Z1.

50 quid I think. So there are ongoing examples of more costly schemes

Seadog +1. It’s a nonsense. My wife works for the NHS and is expected to trawl about the region, from hospital to walk in clinic, to Surestart centre. There are usually about a dozen staff spaces and if they’re taken (they’re always taken) then she has to either pay or park a mile away and walk back with all her kit. And it’s a big kit.

Pay and claim back would be the norm, and then put it on her expenses – which she’ll do monthly to claim for other monies.

It’s peanuts as an annual fee. I’m surprised it does actually cover its costs.

£30 is cheap. Brighton charge £120 and there’s a 2 year waiting list as they limit the number issued.

Parking on the edge of the zones is always a nightmare so they’ve been rolling them out. There’s residential streets 2 miles from the city centre that have them now.

Can’t you just park on the pavement? Everyone around here seems to…

Pay and claim back would be the norm, and then put it on her expenses – which she’ll do monthly to claim for other monies.

b r – you don’t work for the NHS, do you! There is a measly, cover-all, car allowance – parking charges are certainly not covered.