Havering Council reverses doubling of parking permit prices

But councillors and officers remain at odds over whether elected members voted for the right or wrong figures and have made conflicting claims to the public.

Council leader Ray Morgon insisted cabinet members had not seen an addendum which proposed significantly higher parking permit increases than had been suggested in a report earlier presented to councillors.

He said the claim in the addendum that he as chairman had approved it was “not true”.

He told the Recorder an investigation was ongoing into who wrote the addendum and why.

Havering Council leader Ray Morgon said a false claim was made in official council paperwork that he had approved the addendum to the cabinet agenda, hiking the parking charges. He said an investigation was ongoing (Image: LDRS)

“We are still looking at how this happened,” he said.

“Cabinet shouldn’t be in a position where an addendum is sent out by email only four hours before a cabinet meeting, so we wouldn’t have had the opportunity to discuss it and, for some of us, we hadn’t even seen it.”

What happened?

The Recorder reported last week that residents were left “furious” after parking permit charges were hiked by a minimum of 100 per cent.

The annual fee for a one-car household rose from £35 to £70. For a second car it rose from £60 to £140, and for a third it rose from £85 to £210.

Some affected roads, like Sheringham Avenue, Romford, were built without driveways, meaning residents with cars have no choice but to fork out for the permits.

In Sheringham Avenue, Romford, where the houses were built without driveways, residents are forced to buy the council's permits (Image: Charles Thomson)

Conservative councillors were baffled, as proposed increases presented to a cross-party scrutiny meeting in February were far lower.

They discovered that one day after that meeting, an addendum was added to a report in a cabinet meeting, proposing the higher charges.

Those charges were then sent to full council and voted on as part of the annual budget.

Opposition councillors said they had no idea it had happened and had believed the rises were still the ones they had scrutinised.

Members of the council’s Labour and Havering Residents' Association administration now say the same – but that claim is disputed by a council staff member.

Residents and councillors raised concerns in the Romford Recorder last week, saying people were not consulted about the changes or informed of them after the decision was taken (Image: Charles Thomson)

Conflicting accounts

On April 26, Havering parking manager Jo Green wrote to a resident saying the opposite.

“It is acknowledged that the incorrect schedule was uploaded to the draft budget prior to the cabinet meeting in February,” she wrote.

“However this was corrected on the day of the cabinet meeting and an addendum to the report was added. This was included within the papers.

“The budget is agreed at full council and was agreed at the council meeting in March. The correct charges were presented and agreed at full council… I hope that clarifies the situation.”

Cllr Morgon claimed: “That is, in a sense, what I might call the officer version... I wasn’t aware of that addendum at the time.

“Once this arose and residents started complaining, we thought, ‘hang on, that’s not what we agreed at cabinet’.

“This is not what we intended. What we intended was what was originally presented.”

A parking permit for one car was to rise from £35 to £70, with even steeper rises for households with two or three vehicles (Image: Charles Thomson)

What now?

Cllr Morgon said the price hikes would now be reduced to the original proposals - £40 for a first car, £80 for a second and £120 for a third.

“Those people who’ve already paid will be getting a refund for the difference,” he said. 

He told the Recorder that the reversal did mean the council would no longer have a balanced budget, as it would cost the authority around £250,000 in projected income across the year.

But, he claimed: “We will be working on that. We believe that we will be able to make those additional cost savings with other things that we are currently doing.”

Tory councillor David Taylor welcomed the u-turn but said the administration's explanation was 'not good enough' (Image: David Taylor)

Conservative councillor David Taylor was unimpressed by the council’s explanation.

“Whether he knew about it or not, they were still given those papers before the meeting happened,” said Cllr Taylor.

“Are they suggesting not a single cabinet member read their emails before the meeting?

“It’s incompetence as far as I’m concerned to have not read the papers you’re voting on.

“It’s simply not good enough, especially on something as important as the budget. That is the most important decision the council makes all year.

“But I’m pleased the administration acknowledges the mistake and the impact it’s had on residents and will be reversing the hike and refunding residents.”