Plans to increase the price of resident parking permits in Ealing by up to 60% and to allow commuters to park in Controlled Parking Zones have been branded "deeply flawed".

A petition will be put to Ealing Council on July 24 calling for it to abandon its Transport Strategy which Simon Hayes - who started the petition on the council's website - says "makes no sense".

Opponents of the ruling Labour group also blasted the plans when they were approved at last month's council meeting, claiming a record number of residents have complained about the changes.

The Transport Strategy will introduce some 800 more shared parking bays in Controlled Parking Zones which can be used by residents who have parking permits and by commuters and other drivers who will park for a £4.50 daily fee.

At a full council meeting on Tuesday (June 12) Liberal Democrat leader Gary Malcolm claimed a record number of more than 1,000 residents had complained to the council over its Transport Strategy and that 99% of them were against the shared parking bays.

He told the meeting: "Liberal Democrats say that shared bays are going to allow huge numbers of commuters to park in Southfield. This will worsen air pollution and make it tricky to be seen by visitors like carers.

"The record-breaking 1,000 or more residents who contacted the council should be listened to. I want the council to drop their plans as councillors should listen to the voters."

Tory councillor David Millican added: “We all know this will prove highly attractive to commuters. So this means that suddenly residents will find it much harder to park near where they live.

“The whole idea of a Controlled Parking Zone (CPZ) is to allow those who live there to be able to park near where they live, not to have their neighbourhood clogged up with more commuter parking.”

(Image: Getty Images Europe)

Elsewhere in the Transport Strategy, Labour introduced a new sliding scale for resident parking permit prices which penalises vehicles that give off higher level of emissions and diesel-fuelled vehicles.

Labour claims this is designed to reduce pollution, but Mr Millican said it was a “stealth tax” which penalises the poorest residents, adding that offering spaces to commuters undermined any green objective.

He said: “The fact that the council’s parking tax hike has little to do with improving air quality and infinitely more to do with fleecing us for ever more money is laid bare with their plan for more commuter parking.

“They plan to massively increase the number of shared use bays at a daily rate of £4, so this has little to do with improving air quality and more to do with taking more money from our pockets and allowing more commuters to clog up CPZs."

But the council passed the Transport Strategy with an overwhelming majority.

The council says the shared bays will affect a tiny amount of some 800 bays out of a total of 12,000 in the ward and make the best use out of available parking spaces.

Council leaderJulian Bell said: “We want to make the best possible use of parking space in the borough and the first principle of our policy is that residents in CPZs should have exclusive use of the vast majority of spaces in their area.

"Where we have a small number of spaces within CPZs that we know are under-used, such as some which are not in front of houses, they can be more effectively used as shared use bays – enabling visitors or tradespeople to easily access parking in the area and pay for it themselves. Any income generated will go towards funding concessionary bus fares and sustainable travel schemes in the borough.

“ Experience of other shared use schemes – for example those near to Ealing Broadway station – has shown that they operate well and do not impinge on residents being able to park. The £4 per day charge adds up to far more than an annual permit for the council’s car parks, so this is not an attractive option for commuters.

“We will keep this policy under review, and we will amend shared use spaces in the light of experience on the ground.”

On the introduction of more electric charging points outlined in the Transport Strategy, he added: "We know that air pollution contributes to the early deaths of almost 9,500 Londoners every single year. This is why we are taking strong action and encouraging residents to make sustainable travel choices which will ultimately save lives. Air pollution is a huge problem across the country and we need people to recognise that diesel vehicles are killing people prematurely.

“We are introducing additional charging points for electric cars – which will make it even easier to ditch older, high polluting vehicles and avoid increased parking charges under this proposed transport strategy.

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“There are likely to be up to 11,500 electric cars on Ealing’s roads by 2025, and by 2040 electric cars will comprise of up to 54% of total sales. We are determined to put Ealing at the forefront of this move towards this greener future.”

What the changes mean:

There are currently 52,000 parking spaces within the borough’s CPZs. Of

these, 97% are permit holder only spaces.

these, 97% are permit holder only spaces. The rest are ‘shared use’ which permits use by permit holders or

short stay visitors who pay by RingGo or pay and display machine.

short stay visitors who pay by RingGo or pay and display machine. Into these 52,000 spaces, approximately 31,500 permit holders find parking, but CPZs in some areas of the borough are used much more fully than others.

The proposed changes mean that 800 parking spaces in some CPZ's where they are deemed to be underused or not outside people's homes will be converted to dual use. These are mainly in Southfields, Southall and Acton Central wards.

This means they can either be used by permit holders or by people without parking permits who want to pay for their parking. The cost for this will be £4 per day.

Under the old system, residents' parking permist varied in price according to the number of vehicles applicants have and the amount of hours per day the controlled parking zone is enforced by council officers.

Under the new system, tariffs will we judged in four categories - C02 emissions, Type of CPZ - whether it is shared use or permit only, fuel type - petrol, diesel or electric, and the number of vehicles owned by applicants.

This tables shows a sliding scale of permit prices:

(Image: Ealing Council)

The new scheme means residents who have permits for controlled parking zones (CPZs) will have to pay an average of £113 for their permits compared to £75 currently - an increase of 53.31%.

There is a sliding scale for C02 emissions with permits for vehicles putting out the lowest emissions according to DVLA guidance - up to 100 (g/km) - discounted to £50 from the previous standard rate of £83, and those at the top end - over 255 (g/km) - increasing to £125 from £83.

Additionally there is a further £20 discount for electric vehicles and a £20 discount for permits where parking zones are only available to residents for part of the day.

There will be a £50 charge for each additional vehicle used per household - rising from £30 previously - and a £50 extra charge for nitrous oxide emissions which applies to diesel cars.

The council estimates that the numbers of drivers paying between £20 and £69.99 for their permits will fall from 11,884 to 3,761.

At the other end of the scale, the number of people paying between £270 and £319.99 is forecast to increase from zero to 134

This table explains the number of permits the council expects to issue at new price bands:

(Image: Ealing Council)

On-street and off-street parking charges are to be increased with on-street parking in the centre of Ealing rising to £3 an hour and high street areas such as Southall, West Ealing and Acton rising to £2 per hour

The annual increase in revenue from the Transport Strategy is estimated at £729,000.

To view the full transport strategy, go to www.ealing.gov.uk .