• IF Camden Council were serious about the environment they’d be doing a lot more than increasing the cost of parking permits.

So this week Camden’s annual parking permit increase has arrived rather amateurishly dressed up as an environmental initiative.

The cost of permits may or may not have to rise but its spurious reasoning reads like something out of a childrens’ story book or first-grade school project.

It’s as if some of the words have been borrowed by the council mandarins without them checking what the implication of using those words actually is.

If the policy makers at Camden are really serious about improving air quality why don’t they…

1 – Work harder to make it much cheaper to travel by bus, Overground and tube by pressuring Transport for London and the government for fare reductions?

2 – Make it easier for the elderly, disabled, and people with prams etc to get on and off buses rather than forcing them to run the gauntlet of a cycle lane?

3 – Reduce pollution levels by unclogging arterial bus routes, like Parkway, which have now become stationary pollution-generating corridors?

4 – Launch a buy-back scheme to encourage drivers to switch out of diesel?

5– Instal far more charge points for low and zero emission vehicles? According to Department for Transport data, Camden has around 350 while Wandsworth and Westminster boroughs have over 500 each.

6 – Instal free zero-emissions vehicle ZEV parking?

Of course, a cynic might say there would be no financial gain for Camden through these initiatives and so they don’t surface as policy.

But if Camden were to guarantee that the increased funds from parking permit price rises were being directly reinvested into the types of scheme listed above then those rises may be far more acceptable to many Camden residents.

SIMON FOSTER,
NW1