It is Certainly Not Being Run as a Business! If it was a Business, it would be Bankrupt! £22.64m Down the Drain.

When, as a candidate Ms Fiaz promised that she would not run parking controls as a business, what most people thought was that she would be encouraging a degree of discretion in the issuing of tickets; that residents would not be facing enormous charges to park outside their homes; that there would be greater flexibility shown allowing residents to use their vehicles within the borough.

Instead, what we saw was massive hikes in residential parking charges and the use of the most draconian parking enforcement in Newham’s history.

If not a business, it did seem that Mayor Fiaz had embarked upon maximising the revenue that she could raise from an unregulated form of taxation.

But having criticised her for this, we now feel it incumbent upon ourselves to reconsider.

We learn from the Budget papers that she cannot even collect the money that is ‘owed’.

It is reminiscent of the increasing failure to collect council tax, where those who play by the rules are penalised for the failings of those who don’t. We can only observe that this must be a question of the most staggering incompetence.

We learn that in “March 2021 Cabinet approved the write-off, of £32.42m worth of unrecoverable parking debt. Having already written off £4.9m in debt relating to unrecovered vehicles from the car pound, the current unrecoverable parking debt now stands at £22.64m”.

Whatever else she is doing, she is not running Parking as a business!