Park Charge Update from CMRA

The Queen Elizabeth Park Fixed Estate Charge or is a charge to cover costs of maintaining the park and its venues. It is a charge which replaces contributions from the Greater London Authority as part of a post 2012 Olympic Strategy. It is a charge without benefit to those paying it and without democratic accountability or precedent in law.  It is an odd and unprecedented charge and is proving hard to collect with over a third of residents not paying and the original collecting agent (L&Q) now refusing and ceasing to collect it as of April and no other collecting agent yet in sight who is willing to collect it.  

For the past year we have been campaigning to eliminate or reduce the park charge on the grounds that: it is unfair and arbitrary in who pays it; is an excessive amount for the only benefit of proximity to a park to which others who don’t pay have equal access.  The cost has escalated rapidly given the addition of RPI each year. For many residents the Park Charge exceeds what we are paying for Council Tax. 

We have challenged the Greater London Mayor to make a ruling on the fairness of the RPI and made clear our wish for it to be removed.  We are waiting for his response. We have also submitted a case to the Conduct and Market Authority that it operates like a ground rent. In our view it is a deterrent on building great neighbourhoods (the declared aim of the LLDC) around the park as it puts people off moving in and makes the costs of living here unaffordable. 

In sum the arbitrariness, unfairness and excessiveness of the charge and the difficulty of collecting it without proper democratic channels of accountability is a blight on the management of the estate and unworkable in the longer run. For fuller details see our position paper linked to the Campaigns page.