Widespread parking problems across Greenwich borough costing millions

Parking issues across Greenwich borough are a hot topic right now. This sort of topic is a staple grumble in every town in the country so the issues may seem to be same old, same old. However, Greenwich borough is an exception to many. This is evidenced by the fact that the council have seen millions less in income from parking than they budgeted for and this has gone on for a fair few years now. In 2013/14 they received £2.1 million less income than budgeted for.

Fast forward two years and nothing improved. In 2015/16 the shortfall was £2.06 million as seen here:

parking-2016-2

And then in 2016/17 they expect to be £2 million under expected income. So at least £6 million not received in three years out of the last four years. I believe 2014/15 was similar so around £8 million lost the past four years. Councillors need to ask tough questions of this continual failure. It’s a chronic problem.

The shortfall is vast. So why so little action? They came up with a “parking strategy” which hasn’t yielded many results, hired very few wardens and problems thus continue in many areas.

Recently I covered the £1.2 million road upgrade between Plumstead and Woolwich. Before work was carried out on this stretch of road poor parking was a constant problem. I wondered whether all that money to improve bus journey times would see Greenwich borough actually begin to do something. The answer is, probably unsurprisingly, no. Are TfL happy to spend so much and then see little to no enforcement?

I visited the site after and saw much crap parking blocking buses in the evening rush hour. Cars double parked and a fair few parked at an angle with the rear leaning out into the bus lane approach. That was about 3 weeks ago.

road-scheme-parking

Almost every day over the past week pics have been on Twitter showing continual poor parking at the spot. Greenwich council and councillors are included in the tweets. They surely know the problems.

parking-new-lane-2

In the pic above about six cars are badly parked.

parking-new-lane-4

Double yellows and the bus lane entrance mean nothing to some here.

parking-new-lane

parking-new-lane-3

A very similar story is seen by Abbey Wood station. A car is continually parked on double yellows and a keep clear section. This is despite the need for access due to construction.

parking-village

There’s a £400k street upgrade on at the moment here. Following that a £6million Crossrail public realm scheme gets underway. If they don’t enforce parking will cars be parked over new granite paving from day one?

Elsewhere I’ve walked past cars parked on double yellows every day for about 3 months and never seen one ticket applied. The same thing happens with cars in parking zones and parked on paving and grass verges. Daily for months. One never moved at all. No warden or ticket ever seen. Checks just aren’t being done in some places. Departments can say they are but when the same cars are illegally parked day in, day out for months then the evidence speaks for itself. People shelling out for passes must wonder why they bother.

School parking

The Charlton Champion site has today written a post about the parking problems outside schools. Same story. A comment refers to parking problems at St Mary Magdalene at Greenwich peninsula. Currently it’s a temporary site with just a fraction of the 1600 pupils that will eventually move there in 2018.

Greenwich Council are due to spend hundreds of thousands on more parking zones across the borough in 2017. Will a minority be able to ignore restrictions and get away with ignoring the rules? Given what’s happened for years despite common knowledge this is happening the answer is probably yes unless the relevant department pulls their finger out.

 

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I've lived in south east London most of my life growing up in Greenwich borough and working in the area for many years. The site has contributors on occasion and we cover many different topics. Living and working in the area offers an insight into what is happening locally.

14 thoughts on “Widespread parking problems across Greenwich borough costing millions

  • Greenwich council will not do anything around Plumstead station and walmer terrace, because they don’t or won’t upset the people in the shops and using the mosque ……….

    Reply
  • I reported the dangerous and illegal parking at Plumstead Bridge via FixMyStreet several weeks ago. I got a bland response saying that parking would be enforced. Apparently is it not. What is so difficult about this and is there an ulterior motive here or simple inefficiency?

    Reply
  • It does beggar belief that such an expensive scheme is compromised from day one with the council allowing it. And they are as they’ve been notified by many people by email, twitter, fixmystreet etc. Go at any time on any day and the problems are clear and tickets could be issued. One week of that and word gets around and it reduces.

    And that lost income is money that should be improving the rest of the area and borough. Add it to the list of things to improve our run down borough but this council does not do. The cuts line doesn’t wash – wardens more than pay for themselves so hiring more adds no more cost.

    It’s all very odd. Who is in charge here and what are they doing? Three years of failure – surely the same people are not in the same jobs?

    Reply
  • I work for Greenwich and over the years have seen bad managed parking inforcement. 1st there was the large hike in parking charges in the centre of Greenwich which many people complain about. Then they changed the parking times in Greenwich from 4hrs to 2hrs which restricted visiting times. They removed and replaced parking machines in silly areas where they don’t take much revenue. The new Dash payment system is either not working or you can’t get through. Thousands of pounds spent on new machines around Eltham to restrict commuter parking, why not just reduce the parking times of commuting instead of new machines which draw very little income. Blue Badge parking in payment areas which is loosing income from payment parking. Bromley adopt that no Blue Badge holders can park on meters on in designated areas. There is so much I could mention. The management are new and don’t understand and have no experience like the management that was.

    Reply
  • That black car in abbeywood that parks wherever it likes…. thats the boy who runs the newsagents. He thinks he owns the road!

    Reply
    • Glen, that is one of my photo’s. i have reported him to the council every weekday and he still parks like an ass! even before the works on the pavement he would park in the bays all day despite the 2 hour restriction.
      He even started to keep an old PCN on his dashboard

      Reply
  • As for the parking in Plumstead…. I’m one of them bus drivers who have to somehow overtake them without hit a speeding car that’s trying to overtake me. Stopping close to bus stops is a joke to

    Reply
  • Parking outside Schools. Every School day parents dropping off at Schools in the borough are blatantly destroying green spaces by parking on them . The Council needs to employ more traffic wardens to enforce this issue and hand out fines as required, One School I regularly pass is Foxfield where parking in appropriate spaces is disrespected and is willy nilly giving no respect for live traffic. Traffic wardens would generate income for Parking Services and at the same time provide an essential service to Council owned property from being damaged and ultimately costing residents for required repairs.

    Reply
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