People are outraged over "broken council promises" around a highly-contentious parking scheme.

Redbridge Council’s plans to introduce a contentious new parking scheme in Wanstead and Snaresbrook have caused outrage in the community since they were unveiled in November.

Council bosses made a U-turn in January and promised a “gold-standard” consultation to get residents and businesses’ views on the scheme, instead of rolling it out under an experimental traffic order.

But when consultation packs were posted through people’s letterboxes last Friday (March 24), residents were “dismayed” when they realised the questionnaire asked for views on an already drawn out scheme – not how to design the scheme itself.

Aside from existing complaints about pay and display charges in the high street and permits in residential roads, the decision to remove roads around Wanstead Station from the scheme has also been met with concern.

Michelle Wells, of Draycot Road, slammed the decision to scrap permits for roads like hers as “perverse”.

She said: “If the shouty meetings that took place early this year constituted ‘consultations’ I’m beyond disappointed.

“I know many people either felt intimidated there or preferred to be more restrained and wait for the promised, democratic questionnaire.

“But you can imagine my dismay when I got home from work last Friday to find a map showing the majority of south Wanstead outside the parking zone.

“Speaking with my neighbours in Draycot, Felstead, Seagry Road, and Overton Drive, we are determined to reverse this perverse decision.

“We already get a high-volume of commuter parking, so if the whole of Wanstead is covered by parking restrictions and we’re not, we all know what’s going to happen – we’re going to get even more.”

Bob Crabtree who lives in Overton Drive and is part of the WeWantSay campaign group branded the scheme “underhand and unscrupulous”.

He said: “The council promised a number of times to a number of people to involve activists in the design of the consultation.

“That promise has been trampled in the dust. There has been no involvement at all.”

He also claims the smaller information packs sent to people no longer included in the scheme are “undemocratic” as the ones available in Wanstead Library do not cover resident permits, only pay and display charges in the high street.

Donna Mizzi, who managed to collect over 3,500 signatures for a petition against the council’s plans, claims the “absurd” revised plans fail to cater for the needs of community halls, churches and library users.

She said: “The monthly fairs I run at the library bring new visitors to Wanstead and help new and small businesses.

“They won’t be able to survive if visitors can’t park for free close to the venues.”

Fellow campaigner Farooq Mohammed added the broken promise to be included in shaping the consultation means a “serious breach of trust”.

A Redbridge Council spokesman insisted the consultation consists of “proposals for consideration, not final plans”.

He said: “Nothing has been decided and if any resident strongly objects to the proposal for their road we would suggest they indicate that in the comments section of the questionnaire.

“The consultation takes influence from best practice across the country and all views will be taken into account to feed into a final report before any decision is made."

To view the consultation and the revised plans, see the council website.