Because it felt that a lot of our residents never knew in time about the Lewisham Council borough-wide parking survey, the Honor Oak Park Residents Association carried out its own, with funding from the Crofton Park Ward Assembly's funding for small projects, at the end of 2012. The results are as follows and HOPRA has passed these findings to the council's Sustainable Development Select Committee for discussion on 5 February alongside the council's own survey.
A very respectable 375 replies came in from a canvass of 2,500 (by paper survey and online) and by a very small majority, it was a NO for the district (188 NO, 174 YES and 13 DON’T KNOW).
However, of the 28 roads canvassed, 10 showed a majority of those who replied to the survey in favour of control. These were: Gabriel Street, Lessing Street, Ballina Street, Grierson Road, Riseldine Road, Tatnell Road, Devonshire Road, Boveney Road, Hengrave Road and Ackroyd Road.
Most people overall (156) favoured Monday to Friday controls, with 106 opting for 12noon to 2pm control. People willing to pay numbered 128, with 73 willing to pay a maximum of £60 per annum, 17 maximum £80 pa and 24 maximum £100 pa.
None of this guarantees that any CPZ will be introduced, but at least the council now has detailed figures for our area and a clear record of what people want, or think is a fair charge. Thank you to everyone who took the trouble to reply.

Hi Hoptop,

Thank you for commissioning the survey, interesting to see the results. I was one of the respondents and I thought I'd just add a bit to what I said in the survey here.

I moved to Devonshire Road late on last year so think I missed the original survey by the council. Devonshire is a strange one for CPZs as the road has many residents living in houses that have been converted flats. It means that road space is already at a premium for cars.

I imagine there would be three distinct schools of thought. Between a quarter and a third of the 775 properties on the road may have drives in front of their houses and I suspect the owners of these properties would be happy to have a CPZ solution, or wouldn't care... There are also those that don't own a car - I guess that's another quarter of the street roughly? Unfortunately, I'm in the group that has a car, but no drive. Street parking is the only option I have available for myself and any guests.

Essentially, car owners, who already pay a fortune in road tax, petrol and insurance, will be paying an extra £120 (based on what the council seems to currently charge residents for CPZ permits) per year. I suspect that instead of reducing the number of cars on the streets of Honor Oak introducing a CPZ will lead to a lot of owners in the area (and maybe commuters too) parking on Dunoon Road, Tyson Road and other side streets where the rules do not apply. The knock on effects could make a currently manageable situation in other streets significantly worse. Out of interest, where would a CPZ on Devonshire extend to?

Our car is purely used at evenings and weekends - commuting to work in London's traffic would be a nightmare and end up costing far more. We mostly use it to buy things we couldn't get on the bus and make journeys to see relatives. Were we to get rid of the car we'd need to pay what we saved on long distance rail fares or flights and the cost of deliveries! My work is in West London, so I couldn't return and move it at lunchtime to avoid the CPZ enforcement proposed in the survey.

I would worry about the effect this change might have on visitors. I don't want to need to consider that people coming to my house might need to pay to park outside, or have to park much further away - its not particularly welcoming if they aren't from the area.

Funnily enough the time I found parking on Devonshire Road most difficult was late on a Sunday night in December(!), when the whole road was jam-packed. I guess that wouldn't be commuted traffic, though I'm not sure what was going on. I've not had as much trouble parking at other times and, although it has been busy, I've not seen the street as bad as in the pictures in this thread. The completion of the Overground loop seems to have eased congestion a bit too - the train to work seems slightly quieter, and the roads less busy.

That being said, the situation can be pretty hairy at the HOP end of the road, but only usually when people are dropping commuters off and are (briefly) stopped at junctions and outside the station. I do appreciate that a solution may need to be found.

I take it the council would need to issue a follow up survey before anything concrete was decided, but I just wanted to put across my two pence... Thanks again for running the survey. Look forward to hearing what gets discussed.



PS - thank you to thank forum admin for activating my account. Its great to be in Honor Oak

An interesting survey.
I notice that of the 128 people willing to pay, none are willing to pay the normal Lewisham council charge of £120 pa, and there is an additional 46 people who want a CPZ which is completely free (which is rather unrealistic).

Agreed with most of what you say Hoptop. I think you are right about drop offs and pickups and to me this means the answer is in better public transport links.

The one thing I would question in your analysis is the position of people with driveways - some are against a CPZ too. Apart from the shifting of parking issues you describe, note that if a CPZ is introduced, any visitor who parks in front of a driveway will also get a ticket.

I hope that the Council take this survey with the same pinch of salt that their own requires. There is not a big enough sample on any street to determine the local consensus - I believe that most people who are happy with the status quo will not have replied to either.

Although I live on one of the mentioned streets in favor and have a 4 week year old baby meaning that my wife needs to use the car during the day and would love to find a spot near the house.

I am still 100% against a CPZ, recent cases have shown that it doesn't matter what the cost initially starts as, its the cost it grows to which is the problem after a few years.

I would very much prefer for the ELL phase 2 to settle down and then see the parking situation as I can already see a difference since its introduction in December.

Has anyone else noticed that parking congestion has eased since ELL2 launch?

Hi Hoptop,
Many thanks for your detailed and thoughtful reply. As it happens, I don't like CPZs for the reasons you state and have generally advised people against them, but some HOPRA members were reporting on significant problems with parking. So, it seemed only right to find out what people actually wanted or did not want. We were afraid, too, that people like you had missed the big council on-line consultation over August and September 2012 and that we might find parking controls suggested by default. At least the council has a detailed survey for Honor Oak Park to consider on 5 February.
As you have rightly said, our survey is simply an initial stage in a process. Were any proposal to be drawn up, everyone on the roads concerned would have to be consulted and more than 50 per cent would have to agree to the proposed CPZ.
Once again, thanks for your interest and concern.

Hi Michael,
We were trying to find out what sort of charges people felt were fair, starting at a low £60 pa given that we were offering controls for as few as two hours and Monday to Friday only. At the meeting following the council's own survey, they revealed the degree to which people were alarmed at high parking charges and th prospect of them rising higher still. As a reslt, HOPRA felt that we should send a message to the council about what level of charges people were prepared to consider (never mind what Lewisham thinks!). We did have a couple of generous souls who offered to pay £120 pa and one £150 pa - what I posted here was a summary of the key findings.

HOPcat - Thank you for your kind and swift reply - I think you've covered all my queries (stated and non-stated!) in both of your responses to myself and Michael. Interested to hear Lewisham's thoughts on this next week.

mrcee - I get the feeling that things have become slightly less busy since ELL phase 2 opened, but as you say we should wait until things settle down a bit. December is an unusual month for people using public and private transport and, given the disruption the weather caused a few weeks ago, January might not have been the most representative month and it may get busier or quieter as time goes on...