Invitation to Public Meeting: Thursday 2 June

Barnet CPZ Action

Newsletter No. 6

31 May 2011

As you may know, as part of our legal case we had asked the Court to set a cap on the amount of costs that David Attfield would have to pay to Barnet Council should the legal action fail.

Sadly, we heard on Friday that the Court has declined to set a limit to David’s financial exposure.  We also now know that Barnet have retained one of the country’s leading QCs, James Goudie QC, to defend the claim.  

We are therefore at a critical stage of the legal action and are exploring a number of ideas for how the action can be continued. We want to share these with you and also seek your views. It’s vital that whatever we do, we have your support.

We are holding a public meeting to discuss the way forward. If you care about CPZ residents (who make up only 10% of the Borough) paying the highest parking charges of any comparable borough, please come!

URGENT PUBLIC MEETING

The New Local Café

42 High Road, N2 9PJ

Thursday 2 June at 8pm

  

Barnet CPZ Action

www.barnetcpz.blogspot.com

Email: Barnetcpz@gmail.com

Get Barnet to sit up and take notice! Write to your MP about Barnet CPZ charges

Please write to your Member of Parliament and ask them to call on Barnet to reduce the cost of residents' parking permits and visitor vouchers.

The more letters they get the more likely they are to take up your complaint with the council - so please send your MP a letter or email as soon as you can.

Writing to your MP is a great way to let them know about how the parking charge increases are affecting you and your neighbours.

MPs always reply to letters from constituents and we would be really interested to see what they say!

If you are happy to copy your MP's reply to us, please send it to Barnet CPZ Action at: BarnetCPZ@gmail.com or by post to:

The letter below can be used by copying it into an email, or you can copy it into a letter for posting.   Even better, write your own email or letter saying how you are affected or giving your views on the parking charges. Please make sure you include a request for the MP to ask the council to reduce the charges.

The key requests to make to your MP are that they:

* state they oppose the increases,
* work with the council to reduce the charges so that they
* are more in line with other boroughs
*ask Barnet to give an explanation for why the increases are necessary and why the charges are so high.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FULL LETTER

Barnet Council finally respond, and the gloves come off

Update on the Legal Action

If you've been following our campaign, you will know that we have applied to the Court to set a cap on David Attfield's exposure to Barnet's legal costs in the event he loses. Barnet have finally put in their response to this application. Not surprisingly, they oppose there being any cap on their legal costs. In summary, Barnet's response is as follows (you may think some of their points to be a bit cheap):

1. The case only concerns "a limited number of residents of the Borough of Barnet" and, therefore, is not a case of broad importance. [We of course disagree. In any event, the case concerns everyone in Barnet: i.e it concerns the 90% of residents who are being subsidised and not just the 10% who are doing the subsidising]
   
2. David is simply opposed to the "extent of spending cuts in Barnet" and his claim is "purely political". His remedy should be the ballot box and not the court.

3. David's case "is solely based on his desire to avoid incurring extra financial expense to park outside his home".        

4. Barnet Council have instructed one of the country's leading QCs, James Goudie, despite the fact that they know that David will largely be conducting the action himself.

The court may now take a few weeks to decide whether to cap Banet's costs and, if so, at what level.   It is vital that we then have a big enough fighting fund to carry on with the action. Please, if you support our action, donate what you can now. You can use the Paypal link or send a cheque made payable to Barnet CPZ Action to xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx