12 February - How to cripple Bexley’s Night Time Economy
The final Places Scrutiny meeting report is all about the money.
Councillor Chris Ball (Labour, Erith) opened the batting by asking if the Council was
confident that hiking the bin tax by another 10% would produce more income. The
price has gone up by nearly two and a half times in nine years while inflation would have taken it from £27 to only £36; then he made the
mistake of thinking that Bexleyְ’s bin tax is among the cheapest in London. No it is not,
none of my family living in London pay anything at all, although one of them pays
£15 a year Band D Council Tax per year more than we do in the highest taxing Conservative borough in London.
He went on to say that the parking charges review had produced some
“extraordinary results”; some reducing by 30% and others being raised and he
didn’t think the new night time charges will go down well with anyone. For a relatively small return
Bexley Conservatives are hitting businesses.
The Council Officer said that as they had got away with raising waste charges
steeply over the past two years he “was confident” that there are enough well off
suckers [my word not his] in Bexley prepared to keep on paying. So there you have it. If you pay the new charges they will definitely go up again next year.
On car parking the same logic applies, where motorists have shown a willingness to cough up the price will go
up and vice-versa to some extent.
Cabinet Member Richard Diment said that where car parks are in competition with
station car parks an attempt had been made to make sure Bexleyְ’s charges are
competitive for the all day tariff. Some of Bexleyְ’s charges had been “significantly ahead” of Southeastern’s.
Councillor Ball said that even small charges where there had been none is
irritating. Cabinet Member Munur thought that spreading the misery more widely is
more acceptable than further increasing the day time charges.
Councillor John Davey (Conservative, West Heath) said that the Elizabeth line
continues to create congestion and parking problems in his ward (at 4 p.m.
yesterday - Sunday - Wilton Road was congested and cars were parked all over the Gayton Road footpath). He said he had been in contact with Council officers
“for some time but got nothing back from them. More than £15 for less than two
hours in New Road suggests it is set up wrong.” Councillor Diment said it was to discourage the all day commuter.
Councillor Cameron Smith (Conservative, St, Mary’s & St. James)
asked what had been done to assess the impact of night time
car parking charges on businesses and residents who cannot park on the streets
and why is the Ringo charge £1 less than cash when elsewhere the cost is the
same? The answer is that Bexley Council is anti-cash (†) and the Officer
will probably not be too popular for making it clear that the new charges were a
Cabinet decision and not his department’s. There was no answer for the impact of
charges on businesses, presumably because it was a Cabinet imposition and there
was to be no debate. Cameron was sceptical about the willingness of motorists to
keep paying more and reminded the Committee that the Felixstowe Road car park at
£15 for four hours had fallen £178,000 short of expectations.
† The Cabinet Member nevertheless said that the aim
will be to keep at least one cash machine in each car park and he also ruled out
“astronomical charges like in Greenwich where a diesel can cost £7 per hour to park”. Some
mad things go on in Bexley but at least it is not yet Looney Left.