Guy, you might not have discussed revenue raising but I can't believe others haven't. Not sure what you have found out to back up your assertion that "taking out paid parking is very likely to have the opposite effect" because it doesn't stack up with what I, as an opposition councillor, have been told. Perhaps you aren't asking the right questions - or talking to the right people. Your leader told me, last year when he and I met on the High Road, that parking revenue from shopping spaces in central Chiswick is "trivial". In relation to Devonshire Road and Turnham Green Terrace, an officer told me that losing the parking spaces would not have an impact on revenue because so many people use the free 30 minute stop and shop option. So we are starting from a very low base. However, and this is the point about the new proposals, with CCTV ANPR cameras issuing fines to anyone who drives along either TGT or Devonshire Road without knowing the rules (including unsuspecting delivery drivers, often on low incomes), or who can't find a loading bay to stop in and has to travel on, revenue is likely to increase hugely. Locals will be fined for trying to stop to drop off/pick up from the shops but not being able to, then going round the houses to try again or back to their homes in Chiswick (including in Ealing's Southfield ward which is just as much a part of Chiswick as the three Hounslow wards). These residents in cars, or the delivery vans going to residents' homes, are not through traffic but will be treated as through traffic. Flash goes the ANPR camera. Out goes the fine. In comes the money. Don't believe me? Here's the news from Orford Road, the road most used by people who cycle as the model for these schemes. In its first four years, the council received £2,777,319. Traders there say that is £86.10 an hour. The money was collected by a third party which took a fee/percentage so the total raised was higher. And nobody has discussed this in Hounslow House? Government guidance said councils should consult - especially businesses affected. There has been none of that. Indeed, some of them have still not had the three sided letter, with its unclear explanations of what has already happened and will come. You say you have tried to engage here as much as you can. With whom? Not with your fellow councillors who know the area and how traffic flow works and who can introduce you to residents and traders. Not with any traders I've spoken with or been in touch with. Perhaps you talked with the residents who want these schemes? After all, the Devonshire Road scheme has been on their and the council's wishlist since at least 2017. You've had nearly three years to consult on that. There were no wild rumours. There was a lack of information. Later, long after the online questionnaire was posted, there was one briefing, offered to me and another councillor, and a few minutes after that briefing we were shocked to read an article here on CW4 that gave us more information than we had been given in the briefing. One and a half hours of MSTeams powerpoint charts didn't convey all the information published in a short press statement sent before that briefing took place. Even then, facts were scarce. You - if not personally given your tangential portfolio, your cllr chums and officers - have had many chances to provide information. Instead it has dribbled out incoherently, much like the unclear signs at the entrance to Devonshire Road. If this is you or others being "keen to inform as best [you] could" it's very far from award-winning.
Joanna Biddolph ● 2325d