Woolwich parking and street changes raised by Greenwich Council

Greenwich Council have launched a consultation on potential changes to parking and streets across Woolwich.

Issues include parking changes and design, though crucially there’s no mention of funding.

A tad important given Greenwich’s record of often ignoring Transport for London requests to allocate Section 106 revenue from new development towards street changes – or allocating far less than requested.

Another key reason revenue has been poor can be seen via CCTV for traffic offences. Greenwich Council were many years behind most of London in adopting measures then when they did issued almost no fines in many locations where cameras were said to be in place.

That impacts the long term lack of supplementary borough funding for Transport for London’s annual Local Implementation Plan which funds road changes such as new crossings, bus lanes etc. Greenwich have been at or around the league table of London boroughs for many years in when it comes to providing additional funding.

Long term problems

We should also probably also look at the background of these changes and why some changes may now be consulted upon.

Greenwich Council’s parking department has been operating poorly for many, many years. Every time council finances are included within regular finance reports – for at least a decade – it’d be bringing in millions less than expected and budgeted.

Parking is often a free-for-all and the council’s department never increased staff to any great degree despite substantial growth in new homes, a rising population, new public transport such as Elizabeth line stations attracting much traffic from far afield and additional controlled parking zones. Freedom of Information requests in the past showed very limited frontline staffing with no increases for years at a time.

Abbey Wood is a classic example of inept management. The whole process of consulting for a parking zone near the station was undertaken in advance of the Elizabeth line. It was agreed – but not put in place.

The new railway line opens, some roads become stuffed with parking (some of it was truly moronic) and of course the parking department’s minimal staff barely enforce. Eventually a year later they start all over again on another consultation spending more thousands before finally adopting it.

That time it was actually installed. Years late and at higher cost.

Excuses were cut and pasted year after year in various reports. It used to be that a “new strategy” would fix it. Officers put that into reports for councillors every year for about half a decade.

Now a reason (given again last month) is that fewer vehicles are on the road compared to pre-pandemic. However fewer vehicles and traffic is not backed up by official government stats.

Traffic levels were the same if not higher in 2023 than most of the past decade meaning council officer’s information to councillors is wrong.

At 743 million vehicle miles it was the third highest year in the past decade. Still, departments giving Greenwich councillors inaccurate or heavily slanted information is nothing new.

Then earlier this year the officers and council raised the possibility of now privatising enforcement. So if changes in Woolwich are to happen, are these changes a pre-cursor? We shall see.

As a September 2024 report noted, “A consultant has been appointed to deliver an option appraisal and a recommendation report is being produced”.

Lost revenue?

There’s also the recent decision to sell car parks for private companies to potentially operate. The council actually use car park usage as an example of apparent lower traffic levels. Lower “usage” wouldn’t be because they have so few enforcement staff that most car parks are barely visited, minimal revenue collected and are not exactly reliable source of info for supposed lower traffic levels?

And while we are talking about private enforcement, much of the borough’s housing estates previously saw enforcement given to a private company (Wings) for many years in a contract that saw no parking fine income go to the council. The private company kept it all.

The last government stated councils would have to take such enforcement in-house (oddly for a Conservative government but there you are) as private companies wouldn’t be able to access DVLA data.

That could have been a key source of increased revenue for Greenwich. Many estates have pretty woeful parking from a minority.

However they renewed the Wings contract, waited years further and only recently took control. And according to a recent answer in a council meeting, employed no additional staff to patrol now expanded areas.

So proposed parking changes proposed now? One to watch.

And yes, you may say it’s cynical to question this new consultation – and you’d be right.

But when you have an authority that’s pumped out inaccurate info for many years, stated it may now privatise parking enforcement, ignored funding opportunities for improved streets for years from various sources despite cuts (much is ringfenced to transport) and previously adopted numerous strategies that should have led to far better investment in public realm for healthy living which were often ignored e.g. healthy living, then one wonder’s what the motive really is.

And what money is there to improve the town. You can comment on the consultation here.

It’s still worth putting in requests and comments. If nothing else to see if ignored down the line.

Just don’t be surprised when the authority again all but abandons any subsequent report and declines funds to improve the public realm when the next big planning application is submitted – or continues to squander possible sources of revenue that could improve the borough’s streets and public spaces.