A new era of 20mph zones without engineering measures and parking policies that are more tolerant of minor infringements, was predicted to be introduced across London as Surveyor went to press.
Conservatives and Liberal Democrats – tipped to take the helm of a number of London boroughs run by the Labour party for 20 or 30 years this week – have pledged to halt traffic calming programmes and make parking enforcement fairer.
Conservatives were setting their sights on seizing control of Hammersmith & Fulham – Labour-controlled since 1986 – with a pledge to introduce a blanket 20mph limit on residential streets, but without new traffic calming measures.
Cllr Nick Botterill, local transport spokesperson, said: ‘There’s a lot of evidence that humps are ineffective, and residents are reluctant for new ones to be introduced.’
But he acknowledged the need for enforcement, and pledged to provide resources to ensure that mobile cameras were used to detect offenders. Vertical deflection measures would still be introduced if residents requested them in the borough famed for its extensive calming of streets.
The Labour policy to reduce on-street parking provision would be reversed – ‘increasing parking doesn’t encourage people to buy new cars, it ensures that existing ones are less-dangerously parked’ – and the council would get better value for money on highway maintenance rather than cutting the budget.
‘There’s a catalogue of examples where we’ve been shafted by contractors, in terms of the cost per square metre,’ he said.
The Liberal Democrats and Conservatives in Camden, where bookmakers were predicting that Labour’s 35-year grip on power could end, were both pledging ‘a fairer deal on parking’.
Ending clamping, except where vehicles are dangerously parked, allowing discretion on some infringements, and introducing discounted or even free parking for permits for the elderly, disabled or those with low-emission vehicles, were among the two parties’ proposals. The Conservatives also pledged to remove ‘crude’ humps where they were deemed unnecessary while introducing 20mph zones without them.
Deputy leader of the Conservative group, Cllr Andrew Marshal, defended the manifesto pledge for £1.3M in savings from the environmental and cultural services as merely ‘shifting resources internally in what is a sprawling department’.
In Merton, the Conservatives promised to remove bus lanes which have caused ‘traffic chaos’; Croydon’s Conservatives promised to end Labour’s ‘war on the motorist’ by making parking cheaper; Haringey’s Liberal Democrats, meanwhile, hoped to take seats off Labour by promising ‘a greener borough’, while bringing council tax down.
Labour-run authorities urged residents to vote on the basis of their local record in office, rather than on Tony Blair's Government. In Camden, for instance, the party highlighted a 40% cut in serious accidents achieved since 2002, and streetscene improvements.