This was originally going to be posted a few days ago, but the ID card post came up. Clrr SSD has responded to some of his constituents who are having trouble with the HillingdonFirst scheme. With the cards due any day now, I thought it is a good opportunity to comment on some of his points. Please see his blog for the full post, I have skipped some sections as this post would be even bigger otherwise!

The major card scheme costs have been contained largely in planned roll outs (of new parking machines – they were going to be bought we just added a specification for a better card reader at no additional cost once the procurement boys had finished with it).

I am surprised by this comment. The current meters can’t be more than 5 years old. Why were new ones going to be bought? Seems we’re not the only ones who think its a bit quick to replace the meters – keep an eye on this FOI request.

The specific costs of other elements of the scheme are to be covered by the contributions raised from non-residents, especially once the leisure facilities and waste disposal sites are included.

And those privacy loving residents or anyone who simply forgot their card or those under 18 …

The increment for parking and eventually for leisure will be minimal for non-residents, we believe that the elasticity of demand due to the quality of our leisure estate will not see people changing their habits.

Lets take an example of a shop worker working five days a week, parking for 6 hours a day. It will now cost them an additional £3 per day to park (and serve us residents). At 5 days a week with the customary 6 weeks off, this means they will now pay an additional, minimal fee, of £690 a year in parking charges (great, as they won’t even get those discounts when shopping with us either). I am sure workers will probably use the car parks even less now and park in more residential streets. Why not let the residents roads fill up and then make the residents pay for residential parking? A nice little earner!

The community issue, taken up by Three Rivers Council is that the card is unfair to non-residents… in a nice way, it is supposed to be? In that it gives a preferential treatment to the taxpayers in Hillingdon to use service and facilities they pay for.

It is unfair. According to Hillingdons Profile 2008, we have 654,000 day visitors per year from outside the borough spending £18,575,000 in our local economy and 103,000 jobs are also filled by friends from outside the borough. How can we expect non-residents to come and shop at our local high street and pay more for parking than us? If it was only Hillingdon facilities then there could be an argument for this point of view – but not with parking. Hillingdon will eventually link with other local boroughs to allow cross usage of facilities/parking, where we can use theirs at reduced rates and they use ours at reduced rates. Where will the benefit be then (other than lots of nice usage data)?

We have been able to budget to hold our already low parking rates for residents with the card in place from June because of this deferential for non-residents.

The budget for last year shows the parking revenue service was expected to bring in an income of £1.5 million – why exactly were the parking rates to go up if we didn’t get this scheme introduced (maybe not buying new meters would have cut costs as well)? What are the expectations of extra income, what financial forecasts were performed? What percentage of Hillingdon residents do you expect NOT to use the card? Where are the figures to back up the point of view that the additional income will cover what was originally planned?

The data storage issue seems to be causing some alarm and yet the data to be held is merely the same as that for a library card.

This is simply not true. Does a library card track your every move around the borough for 6 years? Every time you park, the meter number and date/time will be logged. How about when you visit the gym or goto the dump? And what about the future uses of the scheme? What oversight is there?

We live in an age where data is perhaps collected too greatly but this scheme is not about the data or use of it (no data would be shared outside the Council except by court order or legislation).

Data is collected too greatly and thats why the ICO states that data should only be stored as long as nessesary. Why 6 years? Is it because thats the maximum allowed for data retention? Surely a month is long enough to find out if a card is being ‘abused’. Why are LBH storing this data at all? Can a computer not check for abuse? (and are Hillingdon expecting widespead abuse?).

Other points raised by email, letter and anonymous comments, as well as in meetings I have had with residents, are that the consultation process was flawed and undemocratic. I cannot answer that as I am not the lead on the project but have asked the question of colleagues involved.

The consultation isnt on the Hillingdon website and we don’t know what questions were asked. We do know that Hillingdon have been wanting to do this for a while (since at least 2006, but the consultation wasnt held until at least 2007) and we also know that only 150 residents responded about something that will affect 243,000 of us – surely we should know how this was dealt with, who started it and what the future holds? I don’t think 150 residents is simply a good enough cross section to allow for such massive change in our borough or a basis for such liberties with our privacy.

I have asked Cllr D. Mills to take a look at this site and give his comments (and clear up any mistakes on our part), but as yet I have had no reply. Do you have information? email hillingdonfirst@hotmail.co.uk.