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Royal Parks and Other Open Spaces (Amendment) etc. Regulations 2010

My Lords, I declare an interest as chair of my local amenity group, the Teddington Society. Teddington lies to the north of Bushy Park in the borough of Richmond. For the past several months, we have been campaigning in association with the Friends of Bushy and Home Parks, the Hampton Wick Association and the Hampton Hill Association and with local MPs, such as Vince Cable, and parliamentary candidates, such as the Zac Goldsmith, against the introduction of parking charges in Bushy and Richmond Parks. Bushy Park does not have the same high profile as Richmond, but is much prized by the people of Teddington and the surrounding areas as, in effect, our local countryside. For noble Lords who are not familiar with the area, Bushy Park lies to the north of Hampton Court Palace and was originally part of its deer park and hunting grounds. It has some attractive 18th century features, including a recently restored cataract, various ponds and a woodland with a meandering stream. However, it is largely used as a source of recreation by local families who wish to bring their children to feed the ducks, to picnic, to fish in the ponds, to run about, or to play on the swings and see-saws in the playground. As a nation, we constantly express concern about obese children and the lack of opportunities for children to take exercise informally. Bushy Park goes a long way to counter those problems. To have those open-ended activities constrained by concerns about parking meters would alter the whole nature of the experience and relationship with the park. The Minister in another place has argued that there are good public transport links to Bushy Park. These consist of one bus an hour on the north side of the park and would then require a parent with small children to walk the mile to the south side of the park to the children’s playground. I understand the financial difficulties of the royal parks but spending nearly £3 million on an unpopular scheme of parking meters and supervision is not the only possible solution. Bushy Park is bisected by a commuter route that is a short cut to Hampton Court Bridge. Hundreds, possibly thousands, of car drivers use this route every day. As the noble Baroness, Lady Tonge, suggested, it would be possible to introduce a charge using modern technology such as the congestion charge which would surely enable a toll to be placed on all cars entering the park and would not jeopardise the relationship between local residents and the park. I hope that my noble friend will give further thought to the need to introduce this statutory instrument.