Hillingdon Council has answered our questions about its parking consultation. The answers confirm our fears: if the plans go ahead, you would lose the Hillingdon First resident rate and the free half hour at every ticket machine, even if you pay by card. The rules for getting the resident rate any other way haven’t been written yet.
The consultation closes on Wednesday 11 November. Our form lets you respond in a few minutes, in your own words.
Have your say: respond to the consultationHave your say by Wednesday 11 November
Use our form to respond to the consultation. Tell the Council where you park, how you pay, and how the changes would affect you or someone you know, then choose the reasons that matter most to you and edit them into your own words. You don’t need to read all 117 pages or write a formal letter from scratch. Your response goes to the Council’s consultation team, with a copy to you and to your ward councillors.
The most useful responses say how the changes would affect you personally. Perhaps you use the free half hour to collect a prescription, take a relative to the doctor, visit the Lido or make a quick stop at the shops. You can respond even if you pay by app yourself.
Would rather write your own? Email parkingmanagementschemes@hillingdon.gov.uk, quoting reference 3N/04/21/10/26 and including your home address.
Use our form to respondNot online, or know someone who isn’t? Responses can also be posted to Transport & Projects, Residents Services, Civic Centre, High Street, Uxbridge UB8 1UW, quoting reference 3N/04/21/10/26, with your home address and your reasons, to arrive by 11 November.
What the Council has now told us
On 31 October we sent 16 questions to Cllr Wayne Bridges, the Leader Cllr Steve Tuckwell, and the officers responsible. Richard Webb, the Council’s Director of Community Safety & Enforcement, replied on 6 November. Here is what we learned:
- Paying by card at a machine won’t count. You might reasonably think paying by card is cashless. Not here: for these proposals, “cashless” means any payment other than at a ticket machine. You could still pay at a machine where one remains, coins or card, but you’d pay the full standard charge. The free half hour isn’t being abolished, but you’d have to claim it some other way.
- The rules for the resident rate don’t exist yet. The registration arrangements “are currently being developed“, and officers are “actively considering” people without smartphones. Nothing is promised.
- Paying cash in a shop: no decision. The Leader told the Uxbridge Gazette the Council is “looking to maintain cash payments“. The Council now says no decision has been made on shops.
- No machines have been chosen for removal yet. Officers say machine removal will be consulted on later. But two of our Ruislip councillors have told us the consultation does cover the principles for removing machines, and encouraged residents to say whether machines should stay, mentioning the Lido specifically. So it’s worth saying now. Residents deserve to know what is being decided now, what might happen later, and when they’ll be asked again.
- Number plates won’t be consulted on at all. The Council calls it “an operational change only“, although its own September report said consultation was required on all five changes.
- The equality assessment comes last. It will be published with the Cabinet report in December, so nobody can comment on it now.
- The documents online were the wrong ones. The Council admits the draft orders “did not reflect the latest versions“, and on 6 November the corrected ones had only been sent to its web team.
- No extension. The consultation still closes on 11 November.
Who loses out
Anyone who pays at a machine would pay the full rate, and lose the free half hour. That hits hardest the people least able to switch to an app: older residents, people with poor eyesight or arthritis, people without a smartphone, and anyone who just wants to stop for five minutes at the chemist.
It also matters where you park. The Lido has poor mobile signal and no shop nearby. GP surgeries and health centres rely on council car parks. And many residents have told us they don’t feel safe standing in a car park with an expensive phone in their hand.
Modernising parking shouldn’t mean making it harder for people to get about independently.
This is the only chance residents have to put that on record before Cabinet decides. A Cabinet meeting is scheduled for 17 December.
Respond to the consultation using our formWe read the report, the ‘consultation’, asked the questions, digested teh answers, and kept the receipts
Open - How the form works
- Tell the Council about you. Your name, email and home address (the Council’s notice asks for it), your ward, where you usually park and how you pay.
- Tick what’s true for you. There are 20 short statements, such as “I do not have a mobile phone” or “I use the Lido car parks“. Tick as many as apply.
- Choose your reasons. There are 49 suggested reasons in eight sections, from paying by phone to the Hillingdon First card, number plates, ticket machines, money, health and the consultation itself. Pick up to two from each section and ten in all, and edit them into your own words.
- Add your own words. Your own experience is worth more than any suggested paragraph.
- Send. Your response goes to the Council’s consultation team, with a copy to you. A copy without your home address goes to your ward councillors. If you’d like them to treat it as your own message rather than part of a campaign, there’s a box to tick for that.
Open - The Council's answers in full
Richard Webb, Director of Community Safety and Enforcement, 6 November 2026:
1. 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 Cabinet Member decision on 30th September 2026 authorised officers to commence consultation on a number of potential changes to how residents could access the Council’s parking facilities and when charges for the use of certain car parks would apply.
There is a statutory process that must be followed for some of the options outlined in the Cabinet Member paper including specific legal consultation requirements. The current consultation relates to the proposals that need to follow that legal process.
Customers who use the PaybyPhone facility to pay for parking sessions are already required to provide their vehicle registration number when parking. The Traffic Management Orders supporting these parking schemes already provide that, where a ticket machine has the facility to record a vehicle registration number, that facility should be used. Consequently, the introduction of vehicle registration entry on ticket machines would not require a further statutory Traffic Management Order amendment consultation. This is an operational change only. Therefore, no further consultation on adding the VRM entry requirement to our Pay and Display machines is currently planned.
In order to provide for meaningful consultation on any changes which will reduce the availability of pay and display machines, details on the specific changes being considered in identified locations will be required. Therefore, consultation on any changes that the Council is minded to make is likely to be undertaken when there is sufficient detail on potential changes to support that consultation.
2. Publication of the decision notice
This matter relates to the Council’s decision-making and publication processes and has been referred to Democratic Services for response.
3. When will residents be consulted on requiring vehicle registration numbers, and on the principles for removing Pay & Display machines?
See answer to question 1 above.
4. Which machines are being considered for removal and what principles would apply?
At the present time no specific machines have been identified for removal. The Council is considering future payment options and operational arrangements, but no decisions have been taken regarding individual machine locations. As outlined in answer to question one above, consultation is likely to be undertaken on any specific proposals in this regard that the Council is minded to progress.
5. Which areas might become Pay by Phone only?
No locations have currently been identified for conversion to Pay by Phone only arrangements. Any future proposals would be assessed on their individual merits and in accordance with operational requirements.
6. What are the Council’s conditions for registering for the Hillingdon Resident Tariff and will residents without internet access be able to access it?
The consultation proposes replacing the existing HillingdonFirst parking concession that is currently accessed thorough use of a Hillingdon First Card with a digital resident tariff. The detailed registration arrangements are currently being developed and will be finalised should the proposals proceed following consideration of the consultation responses.
Officers are actively considering how residents who may not have access to smartphones or internet services can continue to access concessions.
7. Does “cashless” include paying by card at a machine?
For the purposes of the proposals, “cashless” means payment methods other than through a ticket machine. Under the current proposal the Hillingdon Resident Tariff would be accessed through payment methods other than a ticket machine transaction.
8. Cash payments through local retailers
The Council continues to consider options for maintaining accessibility to parking services for residents who prefer not to use digital payment methods. No decision has been made regarding reducing the ability to use Pay and Display machines at specific locations or the specific retail outlets or operational arrangements.
9. What will happen to existing HillingdonFirst cards?
The physical HillingdonFirst card currently provides access to benefits outside of the resident parking discount. Any changes to those other benefits will be communicated before implementation.
10. Sunday charging in Hayes
Sunday charging at Pump Lane and Blyth Road car parks is included within the current notice because changes to operating days cannot be implemented solely through the usual fees and charges variation process. Accordingly, the Sunday charging proposals form part of the current consultation. The fee which will apply next year, if the proposals are implemented, will be set when the decision is made on the proposal. The proposals are that there will be no free 30-minute concession proposed on Sundays in the car parks which would be subject to the published flat-rate Sunday charge.
11. Equality Impact Assessment and accessibility considerations
The Council will consider equality and accessibility impacts as part of its decision-making process. Consultation responses received from all interested parties, including those representing older and disabled residents, will be taken into account before any final decision is made. Any equality impacts identified through the consultation process will be included in the Equality Impact Assessment published with the final Cabinet decision paper.
12. How has the consultation been publicised?
The consultation has been publicised through: publication of notices in the Uxbridge Gazette and London Gazette; display of on-site public notices at relevant locations; publication of the notice of proposal and deposited documents on the Council’s Improvement Schemes webpage.
13. Errors in the draft orders
The Council identified that certain deposited documents uploaded to the website did not reflect the latest versions of the draft orders. These documents have now been corrected and the updated versions have been provided to the web team for publication. Officers are satisfied that these drafting issues do not alter the substance of the proposals described in the published notice.
14. Will the consultation period be extended?
At present the consultation closes on 11 November 2026 as advertised. Any decision regarding an extension would be a matter for the Council to consider having regard to all relevant circumstances.
15. Budget savings from parking payment changes
The figures referred to in the Council’s budget relate to forecast savings assumptions within the Medium Term Financial Forecast. No decision has been made yet on any reduction of pay and display machine provision. The change to limit free parking transactions to one per day for HFC holders only commenced recently and no information on the financial impact of that change is available yet.
16. Current rules regarding free parking concessions
The consultation proposals concern future parking payment arrangements and do not relate to the change made to limit free parking sessions to one per day per HFC holder. Information on the operation of existing concessions is available through the Council’s parking service. The rationale presented within the consultation report reflects considerations that informed the development of the current proposals and will be weighed alongside consultation responses before any final decision is taken.
Democratic Services, 6 November 2026, on question 2:
All Members of the Select Committee, and indeed all 53 Councillors, as well as relevant Council officers, were notified of the decision notice on the same day the decision was made, 30 September. This included information about the opportunity for call-in.
Website publication is a separate transparency requirement, after the event, from the notification of Members for call-in purposes. Importantly, Members were notified of the decision when it was made and given the opportunity to exercise their call-in rights within the relevant period.
Open - What we make of the answers
- The reason given has already been tackled. The report’s main reason for taking the resident rate off the machines is misuse of the free half hour. But the Council has already limited free sessions to one a day per cardholder, and says it has no information yet on the effect. Why use it as a reason for a bigger change?
- The consultation is narrower than what was approved. The Cabinet Member approved consultation on five changes. Only three are in this one. Number plates won’t be consulted on, and machine removal is promised “when there is sufficient detail“.
- Councillors and officers disagree about what’s in it. Officers say machine removal isn’t part of this consultation. Our Ruislip councillors say its principles are. Residents can’t be expected to know which is right, so it’s safest to say what you think about both.
- The savings are already counted. This year’s budget includes £95,000 from “changes to parking payment options” and £65,000 from limiting free sessions. The Council calls them “forecast savings assumptions“, but no machines have been chosen yet.
- We’re still waiting on question 2. The decision to start the consultation was dated 30 September but only appeared on the Council’s website on 22 October, after the call-in deadline. Councillors were told on the day; residents weren’t. We have written back to Democratic Services, pointing to the Council’s own rules on publishing decisions within two working days, and asked to be sent decision notices at the same time as councillors.
Please share this article with neighbours, friends and family, especially anyone who uses a Hillingdon First card or finds paying by phone difficult. Some of the people most affected may not know this consultation exists.
This follows our article on the consultation itself and our article on paying with cash. It is separate from the resident parking price rise Cabinet approved on 22 October.
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