Two of the flagship parking promises Labour made before the May election will not form part of a wide-ranging review of Newham's parking rules and charges, a senior councillor has confirmed.
Labour pledged to give residents an hour's free parking anywhere in the borough, and a free parking permit for their first car.
However, neither commitment will be included in the review the council is preparing to launch.
Cllr Susan Masters, the cabinet member responsible for parking, said the ruling group was "100 per cent committed to what we promised" but that the two pledges would be dealt with "separately" from the review.
Newham Council wants to examine the parking arrangements across the borough, including permit zones, charges, enforcement and available spaces.
Speaking on Monday 6 July, Cllr Masters said the current set-up was out of date.
"Our parking zones have now been in place for over 10 years and we know that they're flawed," she said. "Newham's completely changed over the last 10 years.
"West Ham United have moved within the borough. We've got lots of new housing developments, we've brought through car-free developments. We want to see how those are doing."
Cllr Masters said the review was being held "in response partly to what we've been hearing on the doorstep not just in the last campaign but across many years".
Kept apart
She said the free hour and first free permit were "completely separate pledges" to Labour's promise to hold a review, and should be handled on their own.
"It's outside of the review and that's because that's bound by separate legal guidance and it's a very specific pledge, whereas a review of the parking zones is a much wider piece of work that will require a lot of research outside of that," she said. "It's a much bigger programme of work."
A 'tick-boxing exercise'?
Cllr Masters was speaking to the overview and scrutiny committee, which examines upcoming decisions.
Green councillor Nate Higgins asked what the point of the review was "while you've already determined that you're making quite substantial changes".
Fellow Green councillor Joe Hudson-Small said leaving out the two big pledges made the review a "tick-boxing exercise".
"Given that those two items are such a big change it's not really clear," he said. "What if this consultation ends up coming out with something contradictory?"
Labour's Blossom Young asked how the review would account for the income lost through free parking, which helps fund roads and transport.
A question of mandate
Councillors from the Newham Independents, who made similar promises at the election, said the changes should stay out of the review.
Group councillor Oli Rahman said Labour mayor Forhad Hussain had a "mandate" to bring in free parking.
"It is in the mayor's right to have that manifesto commitment outside the remit of this review because he was voted in for that," he said.
"If the review's conducted on those two policies and the review comes back and says 'sorry we're not going to have that' – I'm sorry, but he's made that commitment, so where would the mayor stand in terms of his manifesto commitment that the people voted for?"
The council's cabinet is set to launch the review on Tuesday 21 July. The scrutiny committee voted to recommend that the free parking changes be included.
