Harrow Smart Card

Following the Hillingdon initiative, Harrow council is working on a Harrow Resident Smart Card.
Hillingdon offers a Hillingdon First Residents’ Card to enable them to offer services and discounts to local Residents.
The card is used to provide discounts on parking, library services and access to leisure centres. It also offers discounts on products and services at hundreds of participating businesses.
Anyone aged 18 and over who lives in the borough can apply for a card – residents aged 17 who drive can also apply for a card. Membership of the scheme is free.
The Harrow Card can provide savings to people that live in the borough and shop locally.
The introduction of the card could ensure that the free one-hour parking that the council is introducing can be targeted specifically to Harrow residents.
The integration of access to parking, leisure and libraries through a single card can also declutter the number of cards that people need to carry with them. A Harrow smart Card could also enable local businesses to target their promotions to residents.
“The combination to access to one hour’s free parking and the local shopping offers will provide a stimulus to encourage residents to spend their money in Harrow” the council claims.
The card feasibility study will consider how the council targets access to its services through a card. In addition to parking, this could also include providing free access to the council’s Recycling Centre and charging non-residents. The council could consider targeting special promotions at the
Harrow Arts Centre to local residents.
The pricing schedule indicates that a card could be issued in less than 6 months.
Although no public consultation on this important matter is planned, we take the new council administration’s objectives ‘a thriving economy’ and ‘putting residents first’ seriously, and therefore suggest the  residents to express their views on aspects like bulk buying cards and issuing to residents, residents self-ordering cards and the level of integration required, for example parking, leisure, libraries, business directory, app.
The relevant officer to write to is Mark Billington, director inclusive economy leisure and culture at mark.billington@harrow.gov.uk