Parking FAQ's

I am very concerned that this new parking policy will lead to higher costs to the residents of London Yard. Although this was supposed to be a proposal it appears that as we have 30 days in which to apply for the permits you are not waiting for the reaction of the residents. We originally intended to present as part of the AGM papers so we could discuss this at the AGM. We have now had to delay the AGM until end August due to the significant additional work we have had to do on the Statutory Accounts. Therefore we included it with the service charge accounts instead so we could implement in a reasonable timeframe given we are now seen as a dumping ground for old cars, fridges etc, etc, etc. We thought we would find out the reaction of the residents soon enough if we implemented rather than debate for any length of time. Our intent is to both respond to the feedback as it comes in, then review over the forthcoming months in the light of both the feedback and practical experience of the car parking scheme.

I feel that there is more concern for the commercial properties which are being given "Designated parking areas for shoppers and restaurant users on Amsterdam Road and designation of the car park in front of the restaurant for use by staff of the commercial premises" than the majority of the residents that live on Amsterdam Road. Our intent is quite the reverse. We wanted to free up the area more for residents than commercials but being mindful of the fact that the commercial leases give the commercial units access to parking too. We hoped to free up the bays used during the day by the staff of each commercial unit. It seems the practice has been to give parking permits to any employee of the commercial units as well as the leaseholder so they would park in the general parking area, which we saw and felt disadvantaged residents in that area. These staff will now have to park in the car park outside 65-85 Amsterdam Road rather than in the prime locations between blocks 13 and 4. Would you not agree that that would seem to be more sensible?

There have always been many parking spaces in front of the restaurant which are now not easily accessible due to the barrier. It is understood that this barrier was placed there to avoid unwanted visitors. Prior to its placement the car park was available during the week for genuine visitors but is not now accessible. We would like this to return to the status quo when we moved into London Yard where this car park was accessible to all rather than to have to ask someone else for access. Whilst we too would like to see this car park used to the full, unfortunately we cannot. We have a sizeable disruptive element that have taken, over the years, to using London Yard as their personal car park from which to cause disruption and trouble. Whilst we have been able to mitigate this a little recently by getting LBTH to install bollards across the slipway (at no cost to us due to our extensive negotiations with LBTH), thus barring their ability to park there and flout our security and our peace and quiet, this has not been enough. Currently, every time we repair either barrier, they break them down again and use our car parks as their own, which is wasting our money. What has also happened over time is that no resident will park in this car park due to the high vandalism levels experienced in the past and others only reluctantly park in the Frans Hals car park and presumably only if they can see their vehicles from their window. This will take some time to resolve and we feel we would be negligent in our responsibilities to the Estate if we took any other course of action currently.

Those vehicles that have been abandoned and not taxed should be the focus of this new policy not the genuine visitors or other residents. If it is, as I believe, your intention to remove these then perhaps the rule should be that only untaxed vehicles will be towed away. At present, it is not possible for us to know if a vehicle has been abandoned as under the old parking scheme the loopholes allowed you to park untaxed vehicles on the Estate, which is in part what has led us to where we are today. We need to be able to identify what is truly abandoned before we are allowed to tow it away and make it clear that the previous practice of storing untaxed vehicles on the Estate is not acceptable. Not only does it damage the paving underneath long term as the moss and the grass build up under it and break up the paving but it also gives the wrong impression about the Estate on many levels and encourages the dumping of more than just cars, as we are seeing. All of that costs us more money to dispose of at an increasing rate, which is not acceptable to this Board.

If you had carried on with the same policy as before, but allowing only one resident's permit and two visitor permits per property then it would be cheaper to run. I can imagine that if a resident has a small birthday party (in excess of 10 visitors) they would then require another set of visitor permits creating more cost. If a resident had a small birthday party they should do exactly what they would have had to do under the old policy and park in the shoppers' bays. It is not our belief that the old parking policy was cheaper to run than the new and if you look at the proliferation of old cars etc., around the Estate then I think you will see the true cost of the old policy.

There has never been a problem with parking on the estate in the evenings or weekends so it appears that the commercial premises are attracting more cars than the residents. Why should you make difficulties for the residents because of the number of commercial visitors. You may have not have had problems but many other residents have, and still do. What has happened over the years is that people no longer use their garages for parking their cars but use them for storage, a number of the freeholds have turned their integrated garages into living rooms and the result is that more vehicles park in inappropriate areas of the Estate - on bends etc., blocking access to other residents and the emergency services. We absolutely want to make it easier for the residents, not harder, and it is that which we are trying to engender with, in part, this policy. Unfortunately, the situation has been allowed to deteriorate for many years and it is always much harder to wrest back control after it has been left neglected, in common with the rest of the Estate. We have asked our managing agents to administer the scheme both because they run parking schemes for other Estates and also because the administration of such a scheme was included in the tender specification when we were looking for a new managing agent. This is also an improvement on the previous situation where the resident who had created and run the previous parking policy handed over all responsibility for parking to the previous managing agents who had no experience of administering such schemes and, for almost the same cost as we pay for our new agents, made a complete hash of the whole thing resulting in the old parking policy having to be abandoned as unworkable.

Has any member of the parking sub committee a vested interest in the commercial properties on the estate or the clamping company? No member of the Board has any such vested interest. If they did have, they would be barred from any decision making in that regard. Our managing agents also have no such vested interests. What we are trying to do is for the benefit of all. We are totally committed to restoring London Yard back to top condition whilst keeping a close eye on expenditure ongoing. We would like your help and support to do that. We are not so foolish as to think we have gotten everything right first time but we work hard to ensure our new processes are as commercial and fit-for-purpose as possible and work just as hard to correct them if we find they do not. The parking policy and its administration will be no different.