Streatham Vale Controlled Parking Zones X & Y Consultation Results Released with enforcement date announced

On the same day Lambeth Council published the results of its proposed Controlled Parking Zones (CPZ) Statutory Consultation for the ward of Streatham Vale it also pencilled in the 1st December 2025 as the date these sweeping new controlled zones (X and Y) are set to come into affect.

When public bodies in the UK take decisions, they are often subject to statutory or common law duties that require them to first consult people who may be affected by the decision.

https://www.pinsentmasons.com/out-law/guides/public-consultation-uk

Venetia Reid-Baptiste is currently Lambeth's  Corporate Director: Resident and Enabling Services and is part of their leadership team. She stated.

having considered the representations received during statutory consultationon the proposals for parking schemes, detailed in this report and the officers’ responses theretoas set out in appendices (A to G), to make permanent traffic management orders under the provisions of sections 6,45, 46, 24, Schedule 1 and Part IV of Schedule 9 of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984, and to implement the schemes between Augustand October 2025 at a cost of £202,000 as follows. 

Corporate Director: Resident and Enabling Services

In the published results of the consultation, some residents expressed support for the new restrictions. One respondent who does not live in the borough stated:

I fully support both CPZ proposals. I also fully support MORE CPZs, as many as possible please. Why should motorists be allowed to park their big, fat, noisy, space-consuming, congestion-causing, street furniture bashing, child-killing, wheeled metal boxes on the public highway for free? Let's rid our towns & cities of the curse of the automobile & all the terror & ruin that it brings.

Another local resident stated:

As a resident of Canmore Gardens I fully support these measures - I don t own a car despite having 2 young children and don t believe it is necessary to have one in Streatham. I hope these measures will encourage more people to give up their cars and improve air quality and safety for pedestrians. I do however have a cargo bike and given the number of schools and nurseries in the area think encouraging take up of these instead of a car would be a worthwhile accompaniment to the CPZ. However, people often don t have the space to store them or are concerned about security. The leaflet I received through my door mentions 8 cycle hangars will be provided as part of the plans. The maps online do not indicate where these will be. I would strongly you encourage you to make at least one of these suitable for cargo bikes (Westminster Council has installed at least one of these so they are available) to counteract the narrative that people have no other option than a car to ferry their children around.

However the majority of respondents appeared to be against the changes. One respondent said :

As a resident of Leonard road and a parent of children who attend local schools. I whole heartedly object the proposal. Leonard road is split between Lambeth and Merton, therefore if you live on the Merton side residents will end up not being able to park or have to pay to park for 2 hours. The parking situation in Streatham vale is not an issue and what the council should be prioritising is speeding and the number of drivers or don't stop at the zebra crossing near to granton primary

Quite a few teachers who work in the area also responded with one respondent saying:

As a teacher at Woodmansterne school, I strongly disagree with these parking restrictions and costs. The cost is extortiant to go to work, especially in an area so close to ULEZ.

Responses were categorised across  different themes. These were:

1. Permits too expensive or charges are unfair
2. Parking not a problem or a cpz is unnecessary
3. No benefit to residents
4. Charges are financially driven
5. Inconvenience for visitors and isolation for elderly and sick
6. Cost and limited annual allocation of visitor permits
7. Difficulties for traders
8. Cost-of-living crisis
9. Difficulties for teachers, nursery school staff
10. Dropping-off and picking-up children at school or nursery
11. Disruption to group church activities
12. Provision of additional electric vehicle (ev) chargepoints or insufficient ev chargepoints
13. Provision of additional cycle hangars

Many respondents did state that they thought that the motives for implementing the new restrictions were revenue driven with some stating the cost relative to neighbouring schemes was too high. 

Excessive Resident Permit Fees £345.35 for Band H: The cost of a resident permit under the proposed emission-based charges is prohibitively high. For Band H vehicles, the annual fee is around £345.35, which is significantly more expensive than in neighbouring boroughs. Given the current cost of living crisis, this is a substantial and unjustified financial burden. The price point is completely out of touch with the financial reality many residents are facing. 

Another respondent said

I am part of a small business who operate across the whole Lambeth borough. Team members like myself are unable to cycle or walk to client appointments due to the areas we cover and number of appointments we may have on any given day, so car is essential to providing our services. CPZ limits us to visit clients as we need to as we must bear cost personally before we can be reimbursed. Some of our clients are medicated meaning we must visit at set times. This also means our clients who already pay for permit parking are worse off for having to pay more parking costs. Small Businesses across Lambeth are suffering, and it is unfair considering i have lived in the area my whole life and never had parking issues in the proposed area, but your plans are now pushing parking issues onto boundary roads for other councils constituents to suffer. There is no improvement in environment you are just moving the pollution to a different post code. It is sad to see priority is being given to revenue for the council over supporting businesses that improve the area and provide essential services for locals

At the end of consultation, there is an officer response to each category. e.g to answer accusations that 'permits are too expensive or charges are unfair: the officer responds, and acknowledges that their plans do not take into account residents ability to pay

The proposed charges are set in order to meet the Council’s Transport Strategy objectives to reduce traffic and vehicle emissions. Any surplus from parking charges once operational costs have been considered is ring-fenced to support the delivery of Transport Strategy objectives and, for example, contribute significantly to sustaining public transport fare concessions such as the Freedom Pass. The new charges are considered necessary to influence the otherwise continuing increase in the number of vehicles owned and used on the Borough Road network. The setting of parking charges is a function which, like other functions under the Road Traffic Regulation Act (RTRA), must be exercised in accordance with section 122 of the RTRA, namely, so as to secure the expeditious, convenient, and safe movement of vehicular and other traffic including pedestrians, and the provision of suitable and adequate parking facilities on and off the highway. Using parking schemes to raise income would be inconsistent with the Road Traffic Regulations Act 1984. Current guidance from the Department for Transport and Secretary of State concerning the introduction of parking control schemes is that they need to be self-financing. This means that, in order to cover the cost of implementing and enforcing the controls, the Council must charge for parking during controlled hours. In common with other highway  authorities, the Council applies a fixed tariff that does not distinguish between a person’s ability to afford the charges. Whilst this means that requiring to park in a CPZ during its operational periods woul be proportionally be less affordable to those on low income, it would be disproportionate in terms of cost and complexity to operate a means-based cost model. Lambeth’s pricing structure for parking permits for residents’ vehicles offers a sliding scale of charges according to the vehicle’s carbon dioxide (CO2) tailpipe emissions.

The full results of the Streatham Vale CPZ's consultation for both North and South (X and Y zones) are now online.