Covent Garden London
The heart of London's West End
Parking and Traffic Report
Parking in Covent Garden is an emotive subject. The area covers 2 boroughs, Camden and Westminster, who have different parking rules and different levels of enforcement. In February a group of Camden residents, all of whom hold permits for the area, organised a meeting with representatives of Camden and APCOA, who carry out enforcement in the area. Our complaint, familiar to many, is that although parking bays are provided for residents they are frequently filled with illegally parked cars, and little seems to be done to stop it. 70% of the residents surveyed before the meeting had recently received a Parking Ticket because they were unable to find an available residents bay. The majority of people had a problem at least 4 times per week.
At the meeting Camden admitted that they were not surprised about the problem. There are TWICE as many permits for the area as there are bays to park in. Also APCOA are already ticketing on average 49 cars per day for parking in the 220 Residents bays. It doesn't sound as though things are going to improve easily.
Camden did agree to some actions. They will increase enforcement through towing and clamping of illegal vehicles. In Westminster it is clear that seeing a clamp has a marked deterrent effect on other drivers. Camden are improving the marking of "dual use" bays, which are "loading only" during the day and "residents only" at night. This should increase the space available for residents coming home in the evening. Residents can also help themselves by calling APCOA if they see illegally parked vehicles. The numbers are (0207) 404 9030 (09.00-18.00 Mon-Fri, 09.00-13.00 Sat) or 0467 253229 (other times).
In the end, however, the only thing which can help residents will be a reduction in overall traffic in the area. This is something which may be helped by another Camden initiative - Clear Zones.
The intent of a Clear Zone is to "improve the quality of life by... reducing the impact of traffic, while maintaining accessibility, viability and vitality and reducing emissions caused by public transport and goods distribution " These are great objectives but so far no-one really understands how to achieve them. Camden have been carrying out a consultation exercise to decide how best to proceed with this and have concluded that they will start to work in a pilot area of South Camden - the area South of New Oxford Street/High Holborn and west of Kingsway.
The next step is for Camden to carry out more consultation to decide what measures they should actually take. They also need to have detailed discussions with Westminster on the proposal because the area needs to be treated as a whole. The hope of residents is that the measures are well thought through and really do achieve the intent, without causing unnecessary inconvenience for residents or people who wish to visit us. The good thing is that Camden have at least started by asking for our point of view. If you would like to have more information or would like to take part in the next consultation stage please contact the CGCA office.
David Kaner
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