Funding The Car Parks in Richmond Park

The threat of parking charges has been hanging over users of Richmond Park for over a year now and has provided an opportunity for the various interested parties to make their feelings felt. To date the only ones to avail themselves of this seem to have been the local politicians who have taken the opportunity to grandstand while the opportunities to do something practical slip through their fingers. 

A Failed Approach  

Their approach has been to play on the effect charging will have on the elderly and under-privileged.  This has cut little ice with a Labour administration coming as it does from a constituency not exactly noted for returning Labour MPs to Westminster.  At best the local politicos faith in such emotional appeals is touchingly naive -  but does one really want to see such naivety in one's elected representatives?  As I was told after the rally at Pembroke Lodge, the wealthy and well-connected of Richmond pleading the poverty of others to avoid paying to park was "a sight to behold". 

The Challenge  

Some time ago it was suggested to both Susan Kramer and Zac Goldsmith that instead of playing political games they should do something constructive, namely use their connections within the constituency to raise the £1.4 million locally thereby removing the tenuous justification for introducing parking charges in Richmond Park. Other facilities in the park e.g. the Tamsin Trail, have been paid for privately and the Royal Parks Foundation (of which ZG is a trustee) and the Richmond Park Charitable Trust exist to make such donations tax-efficient for philanthropic donors. 

The Participants

According to her website (funded by an £11,000 Parliamentary allowance) Mrs Kramer has a background in banking, raising large sums of money at short notice and as for Zac Goldsmith well there are arguments over just how many hundreds of millions he has access to!   And he is by no means the wealthiest Richmond resident.  There are other contenders, the best-known of whom is Mick Jagger who lives just down the road from the park who at least has a history of making things freely available in royal parks (although that was 40 years ago!)  I doubt that he has been approached by either Goldsmith or Kramer.

What of  Goldsmith, a former "Young Philanthropist of the year" and a follower in the environmental footsteps of his uncle Teddy Goldsmith (who died last year) whose journal "The Ecologist" he edited? He has already spent nearly £4 per elector in a campaign to raise his profile within the constituency.  He has resisted the temptation to support the "green" credentials of the proposed car park renovations while accepting party donations from the very "green"  Sumners aka Mr & Mrs Sting.  

 

Results so far? Er no...  

So far  the upshot of this initiative so far is... precisely nothing.  This  puzzles me greatly because it's fairly obvious that whichever well-connected candidate can deliver this solution before the forthcoming election is on to a winner.  In particular it baffles me how after 5 years the  local MP with a background in banking, representing one of the wealthiest London constituencies, does not have sufficient local  connections to raise £1.4 million at the drop of a proverbial hat.  By way of perspective the total residual (i.e. second-hand) value of the cars in a single full car park in Richmond Park is £2-3 million, twice the cost of renovating ALL the car parks in the park. Perhaps she is spending too much time channelling funds to the Liberal Democrats?

To date the best that Goldsmith has to offer (apart from those risible 'honesty boxes') is the offer of a 'review' from his Conservative fundees, assuming of course that he gets elected and that they get to form a government, an outcome largely dependent on the voting whims of the  residents of Wales and Scotland. 

It's not exactly a risk-free strategy, is it? Where else can the people of Richmond Park turn?

A more democratic solution?

Another more democratic solution is to raise this money by public subscription.      The cost of avoiding parking charges is a one-off £25 per elector which equates to a handful of visits under the proposed charging regime.  The alternative is to carry on paying them in perpetuity  so in theory it's a no-brainer.   60% of Richmond Park (the constituency)'s electorate have already benefited from free state-funded university education, the highest in the country. So there's no want  of brains there.  Just initiative.  However there is no reason why a public subscription should be exclusive to the electors of the Richmond Park constituency.  Other stakeholder groups come from further afield - dogwalkers, naturalists and those who merely enjoy the ambience of the park.  As the dogwalkers are one of the largest groups and the most strident in their complaints (they have the most to lose)  I am surprised that nothing has come from them either...  

By way of contrast...  

The contrast with Bushy Park couldn't be higher.  Whereas the Friends of Bushy Park have been staunchly behind the campaign to keep access to the park free,  the shadowy Friends of Richmond Park have been at best equivocal issuing various anodyne press releases.  A petition in Bushy Park obtained over 6000 signatures; the equivalent for Richmond Park raised less than 2000.  At the rally on 30th January 2010 the Bushy Park contingent were in the majority and I only saw one member of the Friends of Richmond Park committee (though this may  owe more to my failure to recognise such shadowy figures).   According to Pieter Morpurgo Bushy Park users have donated over £7million to support their park.  My understanding is that the equivalent figure for Richmond Park is much less - the Tamsin Trail notwithstanding.   

There is a chance here for the good folk of Richmond to redeem themselves in their own eyes and the eyes of the world.  Let's hope they take it.