The Clean and Green Policy Development Committee met on Tuesday, 27 January 2026, to discuss recommendations for improving the council's parking services. The committee reviewed proposals arising from five workshops covering parking permits, vehicle removal, penalty charge notices, controlled parking zones, disabled parking, and the overall parking strategy. Key decisions included the consideration of emission-based parking permits, the introduction of a vehicle removal service and car pound, and a review of disabled parking provisions.

Parking Permit System Reforms

The committee discussed several recommendations for the parking permit system. A key proposal is for the council to consider introducing emission-based charging for resident and business permit holders, with a commitment to explore appropriate mitigations for lower-income households. This approach is gaining traction across London and beyond, linking permit costs to a vehicle's tailpipe emissions.

Another significant recommendation is to review the current system of issuing free visitor vouchers to disabled badge holders. Instead, the council is considering introducing a free carer's permit for those needing care at home, irrespective of their disability status. This aims to address the gap where not all individuals needing care have a disabled badge, and vice versa.

The council also considered dropping the administration fee for free permits, which are typically issued to disabled badge holders, acknowledging the anomaly of charging a fee for a permit that is otherwise free.

Furthermore, the council is to consider introducing a specific three- or six-month permit for foreign-registered vehicles owned by residents living in controlled parking zones, as the current policy prevents the issuance of permits to non-UK registered vehicles, leaving residents with no legal parking options.

Vehicle Removal Service and Car Pound

A major focus of the meeting was the absence of a vehicle removal service and car pound in Redbridge. The committee reviewed recommendations for the council to adopt a vehicle removal and car pound service. This service would be included in the impending tender for the civil enforcement service contract currently held by APCOA. The tender will allow for a pound facility outside the borough, provided it is within a 30-minute drive or one-hour public transport journey from a central borough point. The facility could also be a shared site to achieve efficiencies.

The service is proposed to operate six days a week with two tow trucks. The council also intends to adopt national persistent evader legislation to deal with vehicles accumulating multiple unpaid penalty charge notices. The removal criteria will prioritise serious parking contraventions, and the service provider will be contractually responsible for the entire process, including vehicle disposal, with Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and penalties for failure to dispose of vehicles in a timely manner.

Concerns were raised about the current public hotline for reporting illegal parking, with issues of capacity and unanswered calls noted. The council is aware of these problems and is looking to improve the service level in the upcoming tender, including exploring options for an online reporting form. The possibility of an emergency, ad hoc out-of-hours call-out service for the tow truck arrangement was also suggested to cover critical situations.

Controlled Parking Zones (CPZs) and Penalty Charge Notices (PCNs)

The committee discussed the council's approach to Controlled Parking Zones (CPZs) and the issuance of Penalty Charge Notices (PCNs). Currently, the council operates a sit-and-wait approach, responding to resident petitions, which often results in small, fragmented CPZs.

Recommendations include developing a strategic plan for potential CPZ boundaries to provide an overview of how areas might look as demand emerges. The council should also consider options for adjacent streets to opt-in to an impending CPZ to mitigate displacement issues.

Improvements to the quality of consultation material for CPZs were recommended, including the inclusion of before and after examples of improvements. There was a call for increased resourcing and engagement capacity to conduct more proactive and higher-quality engagement with residents, particularly those in surrounding streets when a petition is received.

The committee also suggested exploring the inclusion of more shared-use or mixed-use bays where appropriate, moving away from predominantly resident-only bays. Enforcement will continue to follow the London Councils' enforcement guidelines and the Civil Enforcement Handbook. Finally, a standard member pack on PCN engagement is to be produced to clarify what councillors can and cannot do when approached about individual cases.

Disabled Parking Provisions

The committee reviewed recommendations for disabled parking, following a workshop and a separate meeting with the local disability group, One Place East. A key proposal is to introduce time-limited disabled bays in high street and shopping areas to ensure turnover. Feedback from One Place East suggested that a two-hour limit was insufficient, with three or four hours considered more appropriate. The consultation on a two-hour limit has been paused.

The council will continue its voluntary concessions, including all-day free parking for blue badge holders in off-street car parks, free resident permits for blue badge holders, and allowing blue badge holders to park for three hours in resident-only bays.

The current policy of providing free visitor vouchers to blue badge holders to enable care will be replaced by a carer's permit.

Further recommendations include lobbying for an increase in the replacement fee for blue badges (currently £10) to deter fraudulent activity, and bolstering the council's commitment to carrying out specific blue badge fraud operations, with recovered costs reinvested into this activity. The council will also review the ordering of disabled bays in residential areas and modernise the traffic order making process to ensure local publication.

Refreshing the Parking Strategy

The final workshop focused on the overall purpose of parking controls and the future parking strategy. Recommendations include setting out a clear statement of purpose for parking controls in any refreshed strategy, aligning operational tools with wider objectives such as road safety, accessibility, air quality, town centre vitality, and placemaking.

The refreshed strategy should be underpinned by agreed principles including fairness, equality of access, prioritisation of safety and vulnerable road users, effective management of limited kerb space, and transparency regarding parking controls as a demand management tool rather than a revenue-raising function.

Work will be undertaken to translate this strategy into practical policy options, including consistent CPZ design, permit reforms, targeted enforcement, and kerbside management. The council also needs to improve how it communicates, informs, and engages with residents about parking controls, painting a clearer picture of their purpose. The approach taken by the Royal Borough of Greenwich, which has moved from a reactive to a proactive sustainable streets model, was discussed as an example of a more holistic approach. The council's climate change commitments were also noted as a potential driver for parking strategy reform.

A draft report on these discussions is expected by 13 February 2026, with a final version by the end of February, ahead of the next meeting on 10 March 2026.