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Hillingdon Council’s consultation on Pay & Display machines and the Hillingdon First discount has arrived. It is 117 pages of legal notices and draft traffic orders. It asks no questions, and it leaves out two of the five changes the Council said it would consult on.
We’ve read all 117 pages. Here’s what isn’t in them:
- Which Pay & Display machines would go, and what counts as a “nearby” shop to pay in instead.
- Entering your number plate every time you park. Not mentioned at all.
- How you would register for the resident rate, and whether you’d need a smartphone.
- What happens to your Hillingdon First card, including at the library.
- An equality assessment for older and disabled residents.
- The money. This year’s budget, for April 2026 to March 2027, already counts on £95,000 from “changes to parking payment options”. With no decision until 17 December, how much of that can be saved this year?
- Any questions to answer. There’s no survey and no form.
What it does contain: the resident rate and the free half hour become cashless only, and Sunday parking at Blyth Road and Pump Lane car parks in Hayes would cost £4.20, or £2.50 for residents. Comments close on 11 November.
A week early, and not what was agreed
On 30 September Cllr Wayne Bridges approved “a formal public consultation” on five changes. The report he approved said consultees must be given “sufficient information to understand the proposals and their potential impact“.
What has been published covers three of the five, in legal drafting rather than plain English. It also started a week earlier than the report’s own timetable. The report had notices in the paper on 28 October and the consultation closing in the week of 16 November. The notices appeared on 21 October, and the consultation closes on 11 November.
The Council could put this right without missing its own deadline. Publish the missing information, consult on all five changes, and there is still time to report to Cabinet on 17 December.
We’ve asked the Council
We have sent 16 questions to Cllr Bridges and the officers responsible, asking for answers by Friday 6th November. We’ll publish their answers here, or tell you if they don’t reply.
Is the 21 October notice the whole of the consultation approved on 30 September? If not, where and when will the rest be published?The decision notice dated 30 September was not published on the council’s website until 22 October. That was after the 7 October call-in deadline, and after the statutory notice appeared in the Uxbridge Gazette on 21 October. Why was it delayed, and when were members of the Residents’ Services Select Committee sent it?When will residents be consulted on requiring vehicle registration numbers, and on the principles for removing Pay & Display machines?Which machines are being considered for removal? What is the proposed principle, and how will “nearby” alternatives be defined, including distance, opening hours and accessibility?Which areas might become Pay by Phone only “where justified“, and on what basis?What are “the Council’s conditions” for registering for the Hillingdon Resident Tariff? Will residents without a smartphone or internet access be able to register, and to pay at the resident rate?Does “cashless” include paying by card at a machine, or only Pay by Phone?The Leader told the Uxbridge Gazette (28 October) that the council is “looking to maintain cash payments”, possibly through buying parking in shops. Will residents paying cash in a shop get the Hillingdon Resident Tariff and the free half hour? If so, how, given the orders require a cashless account linked to a registered resident? Which shops would serve the Beck Theatre, the Lido and Kingsend, and at what hours?What will happen to existing Hillingdon First Cards once a resident registers digitally for parking? In particular, will the physical card still work as a library card, or will residents need a new one?The report said Sunday fees in Hayes would be set through the normal fees review after the consultation. Why have they been set in the notice? Does the free half hour apply on Sundays?Will a draft Equality Impact Assessment be published before Cabinet decides? How are the views of older and disabled residents, and those not online, being gathered? The Cabinet Priorities 2026–2030, adopted on 17 September, say decision reports should identify how proposals contribute to the priorities. How do these proposals contribute to “Giving you clear, and accessible information”, “Listening to your views to shape what we do” and “Supporting you to live healthy and independent lives”?How has the consultation been publicised, for example notices on machines, adverts, or an online survey?The draft orders contain errors. Seven charge tables are still headed “HillingdonFirst Cardholder Tariff”, the term the orders delete (pages 26, 37, 42, 50, 79, 91 and 95). The Hayes order appears twice (pages 35 and 39), and there is no draft of the Heathrow order listed in the notice. Will corrected drafts be published before any order is made?The report’s timetable showed the press notices on 28 October and the consultation closing in the week of 16 November. Will the 11 November deadline be extended once the missing information is published?The 2026/27 budget includes savings of £95,000 from “changes to parking payment options” and £65,000 from ending multiple free Hillingdon First sessions. How much of each has been saved so far this year, and how much is now expected by March 2027, given that no decision will be made until 17 December?The change to stop back-to-back free Hillingdon First sessions came in over the summer. What exactly are the rules now? Is it one free 30-minute session per resident per day, or one per location? Can a resident have a free half hour in two different places in the borough on the same day? Where are the rules published? And since that misuse has already been dealt with, why does the September report still give it as a reason to make the resident rate cashless only?Do you know what’s going on?
If you have any idea what this consultation is really meant to be about, or why it doesn’t ask about the things the Council’s report said it would, we’d like to hear from you. The same goes if you’ve seen a notice on a ticket machine, a letter, or an advert about it.
Email us at secretary2@ruislipresidents.org.uk or get in touch here.
We’ll be back before 11 November with help for anyone who wants to respond to the consultation, such as it is.
The detail
For anyone who wants the evidence, open a box below.
The Hillingdon First resident discount, and the free half hour, would only be available through Pay by Phone.Everyone would have to enter their number plate when paying, including at machines.The Hillingdon First Card would be replaced with a digital alternative.Pay & Display machines would be removed, guided by a “principle” about alternative ways to pay, such as nearby shops.Charges would be introduced on Sundays in the Hayes town centre car parks.The report promised the consultation would use “a range of communication channels” and give people the chance to identify “unintended consequences”. It said the impact on older and disabled residents needed particular consideration, and that an Equality Impact Assessment should be prepared before any final decision.
Of the five, numbers 2 and 4 don’t appear in the consultation at all.
- Pages 1–2: the notice for on-street parking. The resident rate becomes cashless only in 22 parking schemes across the borough.
- Pages 3–4: the notice for the Council’s car parks. The resident rate becomes cashless only everywhere, and Sunday charges start at Blyth Road and Pump Lane in Hayes.
- Pages 5–23: a notice and maps for new double yellow lines and six Blue Badge bays. These have nothing to do with the parking changes, but they’re bundled into the same notice. They’re the maps you’ll see first.
- Pages 24–102: 22 near-identical draft orders, one for each parking scheme from Cowley to Yiewsley. Each deletes the “HillingdonFirst Cardholder Tariff”, replaces it with a “Hillingdon Resident Tariff”, and restates the charges.
- Pages 103–105: the draft order for the Council’s car parks, with the Hayes Sunday charges.
- Pages 106–117: the legal wording for the yellow lines.
The reasons take three sentences. The changes are intended to “modernise parking services, improve operational efficiency”, cut costs and improve compliance.
What the orders do say:
- The free half hour survives, but only cashless. The tables say the first 30 minutes is “Free of charge with a valid cashless parking session”.
- The resident rate needs a registered account. It “can only be accessed if the cashless payment account is linked to a registered Hillingdon Resident”. Everyone else pays the standard charge.
- Who counts as registered is left to “the Council’s conditions”. Those conditions aren’t published anywhere in the 117 pages.
- The old name is still there. Every order says it deletes the term “HillingdonFirst Cardholder Tariff”. But in seven of them the new charges table is still headed with that name: Cowley (page 26), Hayes (page 37), the second Hayes order (page 42), Hillingdon Hospital (page 50), Uxbridge North (page 79), Uxbridge South (page 91) and Uxbridge Town Centre (page 95).
- Hayes appears twice, and Heathrow not at all. The notice lists an order for the Heathrow parking scheme, but there’s no Heathrow draft in the pack. Instead the Hayes order appears twice (pages 35 and 39), with different charges and schedules. The second one may be the Heathrow order under the wrong title.
None of this changes what’s proposed. But if the legal text hasn’t been checked, what else hasn’t?
The September report said Sunday fees would be set after the consultation, through the Council’s normal fees review. Here they are already.
- 22 September: the report asking Cllr Bridges to approve the consultation is published.
- 30 September: the date on the decision notice. Councillors on the Residents’ Services Select Committee then had until 7 October to call it in for scrutiny.
- 21 October: the consultation notices appear in the Uxbridge Gazette. The decision that started the consultation still isn’t on the Council’s website.
- 22 October: we ask the Council where the decision is. The decision notice appears on the website the same day.
Councillors would normally have been sent the decision directly. Residents couldn’t see it until two weeks after the call-in deadline, and a day after the consultation had started.
- The machines were “under review” . Removing some of the borough’s 300 or so would save money, and “the proposals will need to be developed to put forward”. Three months later, the consultation still doesn’t say which machines.
- You could pay in a shop. Pay by Phone already lets you pay by phone call, by app, or “by going into PayPoint shops” with cash or card.
- Back-to-back free sessions would stop “over the summer”. That was the £65,000 saving, and the change has been made. But the new rules haven’t been published anywhere. Is it one free half hour a day, or one per place? Can you stop for free in Ruislip in the morning and Uxbridge in the afternoon? And the September report still gives misuse of the free 30 minutes as a reason to make the resident rate cashless only, after the Council had already dealt with it.
In his own words:
“The parking payment machine is under review, so we are liaising with a Cabinet Member about how we approach that… So it’s under review but the proposals will need to be developed to put forward.”
“We are aware that there were people who would not necessarily want to use Pay By Phone. What I would say is Pay By Phone, you can pay by making a phone call, you can pay by having a smartphone app, and you can also pay by going into PayPoint shops (and paying by cash or card in a shop) for a parking session.”
“Hillingdon First card holders will still have an entitlement to free parking sessions but not back-to-back sessions as that is obviously an abuse of the system.”
Both savings, £160,000 in total, are in the budget for this financial year, which runs from April 2026 to March 2027. The consultation closes on 11 November and Cabinet decides on 17 December. The orders would then have to be made and the machines changed. How much can be saved before March?
To be fair, one priority supports the Council’s case: “Enhancing our digital services to give you more access and convenience”. Pay by Phone and a digital card are exactly that.
But the same priorities also promise:
- “Giving you clear, and accessible information.” The consultation is 117 pages of legal drafting, and the conditions for registering aren’t published.
- “Listening to your views to shape what we do.” There are no questions, and two of the five proposals aren’t in it.
- “Supporting you to live healthy and independent lives.” Residents without a smartphone are the most likely to be affected by a cashless-only resident rate.
- “We strive to get the basics right, first time, every time.“ See the drafting mistakes above.
The priorities report also says equality impacts “will be assessed as specific policies and delivery proposals are developed”.This is one of those proposals. Where is the assessment?
This is separate from the resident parking price rise Cabinet approved on 22 October.
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