Greenwich Park: Car Parking Charges (Hansard, 30 March 2000)

§ Lord McIntosh of Haringey

Responsibility for the subject of this question has been delegated to the Royal Parks Agency and I have asked them to arrange for a reply to be given.

Letter to Lord Harris from the Head of Policy of the Royal Parks Agency, Viviane Robertson, dated 30 March 2000

Pending the appointment of a new Chief Executive, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport has asked me to reply to your parliamentary question about the introduction of parking charges in Greenwich Park. This is an operational matter for which the agency is responsible.

It is difficult to find an effective way of consulting the general public directly about the introduction of parking charges, but we inevitably receive unsolicited letters in the course of consulting representative organisations. In this case we received some 60 letters, of which only two or three were in favour. In such circumstances we would expect that the majority of people who feel strongly enough to write would be opposed to the proposal, but they amount to a very small proportion of the thousands of people who visit the park in a year.

All the interested organisations that we consulted supported the introduction of parking charges in principle, although some had reservations about the level of the charge and the times when they would apply. The agency has revised its original proposals in the light of their comments.

The estimated cost of administering the scheme in the financial year 2000–01 is £76,000.