Councillor urges re-run of Romford car park closures consultation

A petition has been submitted to Havering Council calling for a re-run of a consultation on plans to close some of Romford’s car parks.

Councillor David Taylor, of St Edward’s ward, presented the petition at the full council meeting that took place at Havering Town Hall on Wednesday (July 12).

He told the meeting that more than 550 residents backed the demand for a more “visible public consultation” on the planned disposal of some car parks in Romford.

A plan was presented in a February cabinet meeting that proposed selling five sites that could potentially remove more than 800 parking spaces from the borough.

This included the Como Street car park, Slaney Road car park and the Angel Way multi-storey car park in Romford, as well as the Keswick Avenue and Dorrington Gardens car parks in Hornchurch.

The council said it had published a legal notice in the Romford Recorder about the closure of car parks on March 10, and displayed the notices at the sites for 21 days since.

Read More: Consultation to open on Harold Hill 150-home development plans

But Councillor Taylor argued in a video on his website that the consultation went “below the radar” and that as a ward councillor he received no notification for it.

In response to Cllr Taylor’s claims, Councillor Ray Morgan, leader of Havering Council, clarified at the meeting that the said consultation was only about stopping their use for parking purposes. It was, he added, not about selling them.

He said: “The consultation approach for this is a statutory process which the council complied with in full.

“Surveys have been conducted to look at the potential impact of the likely displacement arising from the closure of each car park.

“The information is due to be made available to the cabinet prior to any final decision being made on their closure.”

If a planning application is submitted in the future to redevelop the sites, he said, “local residents and businesses will be consulted in accordance with a separate statutory process associated with planning applications”.

Cllr Taylor however questioned the council leader if he would commit to “re-run the consultation on stopping the car parks from being car parks in a show to the residents that this administration is not just about following procedure”.

To this, Cllr Morgan replied that having done the consultation once he will speak with the legal team on whether “re-running it is applicable”.

The council, he said, “will get back” about their response to Cllr Taylor’s petition.