Rider power wins in Hackney: £50 per day motorcycle parking charge scrapped
Common sense seems to have prevailed in the London borough of Hackney, as the council there has backtracked on its cash-grab bike parking plans.
Hackney Council has finally ditched its hyper-aggressive motorcycle parking charges idea, following pressure from the campaign group Save London Motorcycling (SLM) and riders across the UK.
Hackney Council’s plans would, had they been rubber-stamped, seen riders paying a ridiculous £50 per day or £12,500 per year to park in the borough, although that has been ditched and a new parking charge structure has been drawn up.
Riders will still have to pay to park a motorcycle in the area, although the pricing for doing so, which ranges from £1.20 to £2.60 for a working day, depending on the location, is wholly more acceptable than the first draft of the idea. Discounts are also now available for block booking parking spaces, with discounts of 25 per cent for a monthly pass, and 50 per cent for a yearly pass, bringing the price to £150 or £340 per year respectively.
As mentioned, the main driving force behind the change of heart is the two-wheeler campaign group SLM, which took to its own website to break the news about the U-turn. A statement on its website reads, “First we want to be clear: we know this is not a total victory. It is a compromise. Most motorcycles will unfortunately have to pay for parking in Hackney. However, we do believe that this settlement was in the best interests of riders in Hackney and around the UK.”
It went on to confirm that electric and zero-emission bikes will be exempt from any parking charges in the borough, and while that sounds like a bit of a damp squib of a statement, it does at least bake in some potential good news for the future. Yes, electric bikes may not be fully where they need to be to break through to the mainstream just yet, but the wording of the new parking charges does mean that alternative zero-emission bikes, primarily those ICE bikes powered by biofuel, e-fuel or hydrogen, should still be exempt from parking charges once the technology is ready to go.
All told, while it’s not quite the clean win riders might have hoped for, it’s a far more workable outcome than the eye-watering figures first floated. The fact that common sense has prevailed, driven largely by the noise made by riders and groups like Save London Motorcycling, shows that pushing back can still move the needle.
Crucially, there’s also a hint of future-proofing in the fine print, with zero-emission bikes getting a free pass, which could open the door for a new generation of cleaner two-wheelers to benefit down the line. Not perfect, then, but a definite step in the right direction.
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Simon (AKA Toad) has been working within the motorcycle industry for more than twelve years, and a member of the motorcyclist family since birth. Growing up around British-built single and twins, it was inevitable that a life on two wheels was on the cards, from a very early age!
