Despite the obvious benefits that motorcycles offer when it comes to reducing city congestion, pollution and parking problems the London Borough of Hackney is pressing ahead with controversial plans to impose huge increases on the cost of bike parking.
Hackney Council is carrying out a final statutory consultation on the plans, which will remove exemptions for motorcycle parking and bring in a pricing structure that largely aligns motorcycles with cars despite the obvious fact that motorcycles take up a fraction of the space required to park a car. The plans include a requirement for paid parking permits for residents, businesses and visitors and to introduce hourly charges for solo motorcycle parking bays.
The precise level of the proposed parking charges varies on a scale depending on a bike’s capacity or emissions levels, as well as between residents, businesses and visitors, and will ramp up between 2023 and 2025. Commuters face paying as much as £10 per day for parking in solo motorcycle bays, while resident permits will be up to £596 per year and business ones up to £1,560 by 2025/6. By 2027/8, a resident’s motorcycle parking permit could be as high as £843 per year, and a business one could be £1800 for the largest bikes.
Even zero-emission, electric bikes face charges – albeit at a lower level – showing that the plan is about making money rather than saving the planet. Full details of the proposed pricing structure can be found here: https://hackney.gov.uk/parking-permit-charges
Although the council’s scrutiny committee has already heard representations from councillors and campaigners that the charges aren’t proportionate, the councillors on the committee voted to take no action and chose not to explain their decision.
Now riders have a last opportunity to be heard by responding to the final statutory consultation. Campaign group Save London Motorcycling explains here how to go about doing that by emailing responses to the consultation, and that individual emails rather than a mass petition or standardised response will be more effective in persuading Hackney to drop the plans. Respondents are encouraged to offer the council alternative options, as these must be considered and responses given to each of them.
A spokesperson for Save London Motorcycling said: “We, alongside thousands of others, do not accept this result. The council has a responsibility to make policy that is evidence-based and to monitor the impact of their policies on those who will be affected most. In this some of the lowest paid workers and most vulnerable Hackney residents will suffer hardship as a direct result. The panel's questions clearly revealed fundamental flaws in the policy, but still Councillors voted to press ahead. Councillors dismissed their £50 a week charges for motorcycle and scooter riders as being affordable and insignificant. We urge everyone concerned with fairness and the lives and livelihoods of Hackney workers, residents, and carers to join our campaign and stand up against this injustice, and all Hackney residents to carefully consider whether this Council displays the standards they want from their representatives.”
The National Motorcyclists Council has added its backing to the campaign. Executive Director Craig Carey-Clinch said: “The NMC urges Hackney Council to rethink their attack on motorcycle commuting. Riders are a significant body of voters and the recent result in the Uxbridge by-election should give Hackney and other administrations pause for thought when it comes to policies which are designed to restrict freedom of movement for legitimate two-wheeled transport users in the way which Hackney proposes.”
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