• DO Camden Council listen to residents or just perform box-ticking exercises designed to achieve a predetermined result? Is a council consultation really a consultation?

In the case of the current consultation on estate parking and traffic management orders (TMOs), the views of residents of Maiden Lane seem to count for little, even though the council have featured Maiden Lane in aforementioned glossy consultation.

Maiden Lane Tenants’ and Residents’ Association was tasked by tenants to complain about the TMO brought in pre-Covid, as a pilot scheme on our estate.

This was following years of disruption while York Way was rebuilt. During the disruption, estate parking consulted residents at many meetings and came up with the TMO.

This redesignated much of our estate as “on-street parking”, subject to the same rules and procedures as the main road.

This was heralded as the only way Camden could think of to ensure PCNs, penalty charge notices, were effective and to remove repeat offenders, thus returning parking spaces to permit paying residents, which was supposed to be the point.

The reality on the estate is now we have 24/7 parking restrictions, no visitor parking and removal of spaces due to redesignation.

We also have a growing plethora of blue badges. Blue badges which “belong” to residents in new blocks specifically designated as car-free in planning; we have even less parking for residents and none for their visitors, deliveries or trades people. And traffic wardens at 4am. It’s worse than Camden High Street.

Residents have been asking Camden to revisit this state of affairs since the pilot TMO was introduced back before Covid. Instead we find our estate being used as the poster child for the consultation.

We asked Camden to come and talk to us once we discovered their intention to roll out TMOs across the borough (which is their intention, make no mistake) which they did. But we await their response to our concerns, a response promised weeks ago.

Maiden Lane TRA consider this delay an attempt to stop unhappy Maiden Lane residents, who have been used as the pilot, being fully informed about parking before the TMO consultation closes.

It would be embarrassing to proclaim TMOs a success story to the rest of Camden and use our estate as the winning estate parking format when the residents living under the pilot TMO have been arguing against it since it was brought in.

Wouldn’t it? Is that true consultation? In Maiden Lane, we think not.

Please fill in the form online with a true representation of the facts, although your opinions and experiences may well be ignored.

DEIRDRE McEVOY
Secretary
On behalf of Maiden Lane TRA