81% against Bushy parking charges

The Royal Parks has choosen to ignore overwhelming local opposition to Bushy Park parking charges and announced plans to push ahead regardless.

The Royal Parks has announced that it will proceed with proposals to introduce parking charges in Bushy Park and Richmond Park. The move follows a consultation which closed on 1st November 2020 and which received more than 12,000 responses.

Overwhelming majority ignored
The Royal Parks neglects to mention, however, that the results of the consultation showed that 81% of those who responded opposed the proposed charges entirely. 83% thought that the proposed charges were too high.

Notwithstanding this, the only “response” to the results appears to be that the Royal Parks now proposes charging on weekdays between 9am and 4pm rather than 9am to 6pm as originally proposed (and to which 84% were opposed). The reasons why the overwhelming views expressed in the consultation responses have been ignored completely are unclear. 

What’s the point?
The introduction of parking charges requires the approval of Parliament. The proposal can only be tabled when the Parliamentary timetable allows, which is unlikely to be in the near future.

Nonetheless, the decision to proceed at all seems extraordinary given the consultation results and at a time when the link between poverty, obesity and poor health has been so clearly highlighted by the impact of Covid 19.

Some of us will be left scratching our heads as to quite what the point of such consultations is.

For the record, the proposals are:

Monday – Friday, 9am – 4pm £1.40 per hour
Saturday & Sunday, 9am – 6pm £2 per hour
(Conditions apply)

To comment on this news story, please email: info@hamptonwick.org.uk