Meters Out Trees In!

Kensington and Chelsea Council is upping its green credentials with a new scheme to offer completely cashless parking by 2020 with trees replacing meters.

The scheme will be operated with mobile parking payment provider PayByPhone. As part of the company’s ‘carbon footprint reduction initiative’ – Meters for Trees will be donating 70 new trees to the borough and funds for a similar number of trees in the Brazilian rainforest. 

The council will begin to take machines out of service on 24 June 2019 with actual removal process starting on 1 September 2019. The aim of the phased removal of Kensington and Chelsea’s more than 700 parking machines is to give residents and visitors ample time to adjust to the change. It is expected that the transition to cashless parking will be completed by 2020. 

The council’s Lead Member for the Environment, Councillor Cem Kemahli says: “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.” 

Kensington and Chelsea Council is the first participant in PayByPhone’s new carbon footprint reduction initiative, which was created in collaboration with Carbon Footprint Ltd, to support local authorities across the UK to reduce pollution.