Lee Green Councillor intervenes in new parking permit system

Lee Green Councillor James Rathbone has met the Mayor of Lewisham to demand answers about the problems caused by the Borough’s new parking permit system.

Residents have complained that they are being wrongly issued parking tickets because the new system doesn’t seem to have recognised they have bought permits. Others say the user names they have been issued do not work, or that they are unable to buy visitor vouchers.

Cllr Rathbone has told motorists who contacted him that he wants the Mayor to get a proper resolution to the issue.

He told complainants ” The Council has been assured by the contractor that they have rectified the error which occurred during the migration to the new IT system and caused this to occur, but we will obviously have to wait and see whether the problem is truly fixed.”

Cllr Rathbone confirmed that the Council has instructed the contractor to carry out auto-cancellations of PCNs issued in error to remove the onus onto the residents to appeal through the usual process.

He added “I have asked officers what they will be doing to identify all residents affected by this, to make sure that they receive a suitable apology and in cases where invalid PCN’s were paid that refunds are issued. I have also agreed a process with the Director of Public Realm for any cases which come to my attention to be raised directly with his office and the Parking Services Manager to ensure that the individual case is resolved.”

Lewisham admits its new parking permit system had “snagging issues”

The old parking voucher app

Lewisham Council has told the Lee Manor Society its new parking permit system had “snagging issues” but claimed they have since been resolved.

Several residents have complained about the system, which Lewisham has termed an upgrade. Christopher Nicolson posted on Facebook “Lewisham Council’s Parking system change has been a disaster. I am getting two false PCNs a day because they can’t seem to assign my live permit to my profile. I haven’t had a reply or response yet so they must be swamped in false positives.”

Other residents said the user name they had been assigned didn’t work or they had lost visitor vouchers which had been bought under the old system and had now vanished. A resident who rang the NSL phone number waited in a queue for several minutes before being cut off.

Lewisham Council told the Lee Manor Society “If any customers’ previously purchased vouchers have not migrated over to the new platform, we are happy to investigate and return them back to their account as we understand a minority of customers had similar issues. We will also look to cancel any PCNs incurred while we went through the system upgrade, provided it was where the resident would normally be expected to park with their permit.

“If people are experiencing issues we encourage them to contact us directly so we can investigate, at Lewishamparkingpermits@nsl.co.uk.”

Emails to this address get an automated response which says “Thank you for contacting Lewisham Parking Permits. We’re currently experiencing an exceptionally high volume of enquiries, and our team is working hard to respond to everyone as quickly as possible. You can expect to hear back from us within 72 hours, although it may take a little longer depending on the complexity of your query.”

If you are having problems with the new system please leave a reply below or email leemanorsociety@gmail.com