Harrow Council is currently undertaking trial schemes of the School Streets programme, an initiative aiming to encourage active travel among students and parents as well as improving the air quality of the Borough by reducing traffic. The scheme involves temporary road closures for streets outside selected schools during drop off / pick up hours, with access restricted to authorized vehicles.
Labour Councillors have broadly supported this scheme due to the health benefits that would entail its implementation across the Borough, and the reduction of risk to students and parents by easing the congestion around schools that currently poses a serious safety risk.
However, Labour Councillors have voiced serious concerns about the prospective enforcement of this scheme, with CCTV hidden cameras popping up around the Borough to penalize residents, often without them being sufficiently notified about the presence of these cameras, with signage stuck halfway up lampposts instead of in ready view.
Of even greater concern, however, are the excessive income targets that the Tory Council was forced to reveal at this month’s Cabinet meeting. Despite Tory Councillor’s claims that the School Streets scheme would be implemented to reduce traffic, their Cabinet Papers revealed that this scheme will actually see a yearly increase in revenue, from £180,000 in the first year to a staggering £810,000 in the third.
Instead of reducing the amount of traffic around schools, this revenue estimation indicates that the Council are banking on residents and parents falling foul of enforcement schemes so they can balance the books. Coupled with the pre-existing furore around FPN’s and the number of challenges being received by the Council as they try to hit their income targets through fines, this paints a worrying picture about how the Council is balancing their books on the backs of residents.
Cllr David Perry, Leader of the Harrow Labour Group, said:
“I have been extremely concerned to learn of the excessive income targets for implementing a scheme as positive as School Streets, and I am not satisfied following questioning at the recent Cabinet meeting that sufficient flexibility is in the appeals system when introducing such a scheme. Residents have already fallen foul, with the appeal process putting income targets first instead of residents. As mentioned last year, the Council are continuing to install widespread CCTV cameras to fine residents in these areas, unnecessarily penalising residents for the sake of hitting a financial target. I raised this issue at Cabinet this week, but my concerns were shrugged off by Conservative Councillors who have clearly put their excessive income targets before residents.”