Newham Labour promised to introduce an hour’s free parking for residents and to give them a free parking permit for their first car, reports Nick Clark, Local Democracy Reporter

Barking Road and (inset) Susan Masters — Barking Road and (inset) the council’s cabinet member for parking Susan Masters

Two of Labour’s key election pledges will not be included in a review of parking rules and charges in Newham.

Labour promised to introduce an hour’s free parking for residents anywhere in the borough, and to give them a free parking permit for their first car.

However, these promises won’t be part of a planned review of the council’s parking policies.

Susan Masters, the senior Labour councillor responsible for parking, said the ruling party was “100% committed to what we promised”.

However, Cllr Masters said the council would look at the two promises “separately” to the wide-ranging review.

Newham Council wants to look at the parking arrangements it has in place across the borough, including permit zones, charges, enforcement, and available parking spaces.

Speaking on Monday (6th) Cllr Masters said current parking arrangements are out of date.

She said: “Our parking zones have now been in place for over ten years and we know that they’re flawed. Newham’s completely changed over the last ten years.

“West Ham United have moved within the borough. We’ve got lots of new housing developments, we’ve brought through car-free developments. We want to see how those are doing.”

Cllr Masters also said Labour wanted to hold the review “in response partly to what we’ve been hearing on the doorstep not just in the last campaign but across many years”.

But she announced that two of Labour’s key parking commitments – the hour’s free parking, and first free parking permit – would not be part of it.

Cllr Masters said they were “completely separate pledges” to Labour’s promise before the election to hold a parking review, and should be dealt with separately.

She said: “It’s outside of the review and that’s because that’s bound by separate legal guidance and it’s a very specific pledge, whereas a review of the parking zones is a much wider piece of work that will require a lot of research outside of that. It’s a much bigger programme of work.”

Cllr Masters was speaking to councillors on the overview and scrutiny committee, which examines upcoming decisions.

Green Party councillor Nate Higgins asked what the point of having a parking review was “while you’ve already determined that you’re making quite substantial changes”.

And fellow Green councillor Joe Hudson-Small suggested not including the two big pledges made the review a “tick-boxing exercise”.

He said: “Given that those two items are such a big change it’s not really clear. What if this consultation ends up coming out with something contradictory?”

Labour councillor Blossom Young asked how the review would take account of the lost income through free parking, which is used to fund roads and transport.

However, councillors from the Newham Independents – who made similar promises in the election – said the changes should not be part of the review.

Newham Independents group councillor Oli Rahman said Labour mayor Forhad Hussain had a “mandate” to bring in the free parking measures.

He said: “It is in the mayor’s right to have that manifesto commitment outside the remit of this review because he was voted in for that.

“If the review’s conducted on those two policies and the review comes back and says sorry we’re not going not have that – I’m sorry, but he’s made that commitment, so where would the mayor stand in terms of his manifesto commitment that the people voted for?”

The council’s cabinet – its group of leading councillors – is set to launch the review on Tuesday, 21st July.

The overview and scrutiny committee voted to recommend that the cabinet includes the free parking changes in the review.

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