Parking meters swapped for trees in Kensington

Kensington and Chelsea Council has announced that it has signed up to a pollution-busting programme, which will see the borough offer completely cashless parking by 2020.

Working alongside mobile parking payment provider PayByPhone, the council is taking part in the Meters for Trees initiative which sees the company donate more than 70 new trees to the central London borough and to donate funds for a similar number of trees to be saved in the Brazilian rainforest, in order to guarantee an overall carbon reduction.

The removal of Kensington and Chelsea’s more than 700 parking machines will take place in phases in order to give residents and visitors ample time to adjust to the change. The council aims to complete the transition to cashless parking by 2020, beginning to take machines out of service on 24 June 2019, with the actual removal process starting on 1 September 2019.

Cem Kemahli, lead member for Environment, Kensington and Chelsea Council, sais: “The shift to cashless parking and PayByPhone’s Meters for Trees initiative are huge steps forward in our quest to make our borough’s parking service carbon neutral. Cashless parking is more convenient for drivers and eliminates the risk of theft from machines. But more importantly it also means that our staff will no longer have to drive 23,000 miles every year, almost a tenth of the way to the moon, to maintain and to collect cash from parking machines. This is the type of smart, green initiative we think will become the new norm for cities around the UK. It’s great to be leading this change.”