The East Herts Council Overview and Scrutiny Committee met to discuss resident parking policy, methods of communication used by registered housing providers, and the committee's draft work programme. The committee agreed to provide comments on proposed changes to the Resident Permit Zone policy and approved a project plan and task and finish group for scrutinising registered providers' communications methods. The committee also agreed to the draft work programme.

Resident Permit Zone Policy

The committee considered and agreed to provide comments on proposed changes to the East Herts District Council's (EHDC) Resident Permit Parking Schemes (RPZs) Operational Guidance. The proposed changes aim to enhance accessibility, reduce procedural barriers, and better align the guidance and policy with the council's strategic priorities, including sustainability, air quality, community wellbeing, and economic growth.

The recommendations are based on public feedback from the 2024 Parking Strategy engagement, independent review findings, and benchmarking against best practice from comparable local authorities.

The proposed changes to the Resident's Permit Zone (RPZ) Operational Guidance that the committee considered were:

• Reducing the requirement that non-resident parking must exceed 40% occupancy at peak times as a condition for implementing an RPZ, to 10% occupancy at peak times.
• Removing the requirement for there to be sufficient kerb space to enable 75% of households in a proposed area to park one vehicle on-street as a condition for implementing an RPZ.
• Allowing officers to exercise discretion in exceptional cases where local evidence and professional judgement support progression of a scheme.

The report noted that the current policy requires non-resident parking to exceed 40% occupancy at peak times, but the proposed change would amend this requirement by reducing the non-resident parking occupancy threshold from 40% to 10% to allow more holistic assessments based on local context, resident feedback, and officer observations. A provision for officer discretion is also recommended to ensure that borderline or exceptional cases can be considered where there is compelling evidence of need.

The report argued that the rigid threshold can prevent necessary schemes in areas with clear parking stress, and that other councils, such as Watford and Stevenage, have shifted away from this model in favour of more flexible, context-driven approaches.

The report also noted that the current policy requires that 75% of households in a proposed zone have on-street parking capacity for one vehicle, but the proposed change would remove or reduce this requirement to a minimum of 50% to reflect practical constraints in historic, mixed use or high-density areas.

The report argued that many zones struggle to meet the current 75% kerb space requirement due to constrained street layouts, pre-existing loading restrictions, and competing demands for limited road space (e.g. bus stops, cycle lanes, junction protection).

The report set out three options:

• Option A: Do nothing and retain current RPZ thresholds and procedures.
• Option B: Amend only the 40% threshold and reduce the occupancy requirement of non residents' from 40% to 10%, retaining consultation thresholds and kerb space criteria.
• Option C: Implement all proposed amendments and reduce the 40% threshold to 10% and relaxation of the kerb space criteria.

The report argued that Option A maintains consistency but continues to limit RPZ delivery and does not support the delivery of the council's wider environmental and transport goals, Option B is a partial improvement but some community-supported schemes may still be blocked, and Option C supports wider uptake, enables greater flexibility, and better aligns with local needs and national best practice.

The report also noted a roadmap to create RPZs based on previous requests from residents and supported by Members, and that the current programme will end in 2028 as the current policy refers to only being able to progress two schemes in any year, due to Parking Service staff resource constraints.

The locations with historical requests for Resident Permit Zones are:

• Park Road in Hertford
• Tamworth Road in Hertford
• Gladstone Road in Ware
• New Road (part) in Ware
• West Street in Hertford
• Stortford Hall Park and Edens Close in Bishop's Stortford
• The Copse and Woodlands in Bishop's Stortford

Scrutiny of Registered Providers' Communications Methods

The committee approved the project plan and the establishment of a task and finish group as outlined in the project plan for the Scrutiny of Registered Providers' Communications Methods.

The report noted that East Herts is a non-stock holding authority, but the council has a duty to allocate homes by means of nominations to registered providers¹. There are 40 registered providers operating in East Herts with a total of over 9,700 homes between them. The Overview and Scrutiny Committee have identified a need to scrutinise how registered providers communicate with their customers, elected members and councils and, importantly, how effective or otherwise these methods are.

The aims of the scrutiny exercise are to identify:

• areas for improvement by housing associations and/or the council
• examples of best practice that can be shared among housing associations
• potential issues for lobbying national bodies, such as regulators or government, to improve housing association communications.

The project plan outlines the timeline to deliver the objectives, and work has commenced with an initial survey of registered providers developed and information gathering on current practices and processes, areas of good practice and any gaps has started.

The information gathered from registered providers will be shared at a task and finish group, and the group will make recommendations to Overview and Scrutiny Committee. The task and finish group will consider the information from the register provider and council officer surveys and may request further information from registered providers, council officers or other stakeholders to inform their recommendations as required.

The report anticipates an update report to the Overview and Scrutiny in November with a final report coming to Overview and Scrutiny Committee in January 2026 which will provide an update on the findings and recommendations identified.

The findings and recommendations will be presented to the Executive Member for Neighbourhoods for consideration.

The scrutiny process will follow three phases:

• Phase A – Fact-Finding and Evidence Gathering: A questionnaire will be issued to all housing associations with properties in East Herts, and a task-and-finish group will be established to gather further expert evidence (in writing or via in-person/online sessions).
• Phase B – Recommendation Formulation: Survey results and evidence will be analysed by the task-and-finish group to identify key findings and proposed recommendations.
• Phase C – Reporting: A report will be presented to Overview and Scrutiny Committee (O&S) containing recommendations for the Executive Member for Neighbourhoods.

The report also lists possible 'expert witnesses' that the O&S Committee and/or the task-and-finish group may wish to gather evidence from, including local housing associations such as Clarion and SNG, the Housing Ombudsman and/or Social Housing Regulator, a nearby stock-holding local authority, and Citizens Advice East Herts.

Overview and Scrutiny Committee - Draft Work Programme

The committee agreed the work programme as set out in appendix 1.

The report noted that a key function of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee is to hold the Executive to account for its decisions, to review existing policies and consider proposals for new policies, and that the principle power of scrutiny is to influence polices and decisions made by the Council.

The topics for scrutiny at the following meetings are:

• 4 November 2025
• 20 January 2026
• 10 March 2026

The following topics are in the work programme for possible scrutiny in 2025/26:

• Affordable Housing
• Sustainable Transport
• Development Management and Community Forums
• Task and Finish Group grounds maintenance contract
• Local Government Reform
• Anti-Racism Charter and the Equalities Strategy

The report noted that all new up and coming strategies and policies will automatically be added to the Overview and Scrutiny Committee work programme, and Members of Overview and Scrutiny can then consider whether they wish to look at these as part of the work programme.