Dear Nick Lester

Thank you for your letter of 4 August 1998, and our chance to give our views on the matter of increased parking charges in London.

Our campaign would welcome all proposed increases, on the grounds that higher parking charges will lead to less demand for parking and thereby less traffic on the roads, which will make the roads a safer place for cycling.

I am concerned that your consultation document contains a section on bus lanes but not on cycle lanes. Surely if your office understands the need to keep bus lanes clear, it can apply this logic to cycle lanes? Cars parked in cycle lanes not only slow our journeys, but can be very hazardous too. They will put many people off cycling altogether, and cause accidents for others by forcing them to veer out into the mainstream of the traffic flow.

Therefore, we would especially welcome a significant increase in the levels of parking fines given to those who park in cycle lanes. This practice is a real problem in Merton, and I suspect other boroughs, and can make cycling even more hazardous than it was before the cycle lanes were installed. A debate is currently raging in our local paper about cycling on pavements, and while I have been careful not to be seen to condone this practice, I have said that there might be less pavement cycling if car drivers desisted from parking in all the new cycle lanes. However, such appeals will I fear go ignored until punitive levels of fines can be applied to offenders.

5.1.1 We support the continued applicability of the banding system for penalties.

5.1.2 We support increased penalties for all contraventions, but would also support the case for a new A+ band to be applied to cycle lanes, bus lanes, zebra and toucan crossings, zigzags outside schools, and all other sites where illegal parking compromises the safety of other road users.

• Permitted parking penalties rise to £80, £60, £40.
• Prohibited parking penalties rise further still to perhaps £160, £120, £80 as evidence of 'zero tolerance' on drivers endangering the safety of other road users.

6. We have no view on the use of the discount rate.

7. We support maximum possible increases in the levels of these charges.

8.2 We repeat the above, i.e. that contraventions of bus lane regulations must attract the highest penalty levels, and so too must contraventions of cycle lane regulations. Where parking is permitted (in advisory cycle lanes, for instance) we would like to see TCfL lobbying for legislation to outlaw this practice.

Yours Sincerely

Richard Evans