Act now to save free bike parking
Camden consults on £6 per day charge to park
Riders in the London borough of Camden face losing dedicated free motorcycle parking bays and seeing them replaced with multi-use bays that will charge £6 a day – but there is still time to have your say. From next year daily commuters will be expected to fork out £1560 a year. Even more outrageous is that after two years the cost will shoot up to £5.91 an hour. Camden Council claim it is an attempt to “discourage inessential motorcycle journeys” and riders are “more likely to be involved in collisions resulting in a fatality or serious injury to both pedestrians and cyclists” and that “peak sound levels for motorcycles can significantly exceed those for motor vehicles, creating noise and disturbance for residents”. To support its position the council points to TfL’s ‘Vision Zero Action’ plan which stats that relative to the amount of traffic, bikes are involved in more collisions with pedestrians than any other vehicle. Collisions with cyclists are roughly in line with other transport modes. Unsurprisingly the stats make no mention of who is at fault in the collisions, while Camden have declined to mention that cars are still involved in six times as many collisions with pedestrians and nearly 20 times as many with cyclists. For the noise claim, the council points to a 2018 paper that says more should be done about motorcycles fitted with illegal exhausts. Clearly not all bikers do this, yet the council expects all bikers to pay for it.
“It’s outrageous,” says Lembit
‘This is just another stealth tax on biking’ ADAM KAY, WORKSHOP OWNER
Opik, Director of Communications at Motorcycle Action Group. “Many of the people this will affect will already be low paid and can’t afford to change to a new electric bike or pay these charges.”
Out of 32 London boroughs only Westminster charges for motorcycle parking at just £1 per day
(or 31p per day for a season ticket). Worse still, by turning all the motorcycle bays into mixed use bays there will be no additional security. Especially concerning as Camden has been a hotspot both for moped theft and moped enabled crime.
It’s not just visitors that are being shafted by this outrageous price hike, residents will have their permit prices doubled, while businesses will be charged £359 per year. Adam Kay runs a motorcycle workshop in Camden, which currently makes use of a dedicated motorcycle parking bay outside. He said: “During the most crazy time in the world for health and business this is another stealth tax. Not everyone can walk or cycle and people are avoiding the underground as much as possible.”
● Have your say! The council are holding a consultation which is open until December 18 and all feedback should be sent to permitsreview@camden.gov.uk