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News and Comment October 2009

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8 October - Councillor John Davey, Vice-Chairman of the Environment and Transport Overview and Scrutiny Committee

Three weeks have gone by since Bexley council unlawfully ticketed a dozen cars in Abbey Road, Belvedere after failing to place signs or cones alongside parking bays that they had planned to suspend. I alerted councillor Davey to this injustice immediately and he hasn’t been bothered to even acknowledge the communication. He prefers to see innocent motorists fined whilst knowing full well that that is unjust. Two days ago his Conservative colleague Ian Clement was given a suspended prison sentence for spending a couple of hundred pounds of council tax payer’s money on a few lunches for other politicians, the sort of thing businessmen do every day. That doesn’t make it right but it hardly compares with dishonestly extorting double that sum from council tax paying motorists who had done nothing to contravene any posted parking notice. I know which of the two I would like to see given a prison sentence; those who stand idly by knowing that an injustice has been done with their acquiescence.

Since that shameful incident I discovered who posted the parking restriction notice in such a stupid place away from the bays he intended to restrict. It was Rupert Cheeseman of ‘Environment and Regeneration Services’. He admitted placing a notice on a convenient post within the Controlled Zone intending to restrict parking in bays outside the Controlled Zone and for good measure left road maintenance materials in the road opposite the warning notice to complete the deception. See photos. Apparently he is entitled to put up such a notice. If his job required him to climb a step ladder he would have to undergo a training course to ensure his competence to lift a foot off the floor, but to erect temporary parking signs he needs no knowledge of parking regulations at all. All he needs is the excess of arrogance and effrontery which too many council employees display. I spoke to Mr. Cheesman and he admitted to putting up the signs during the afternoon before the incident and when it was demonstrated to him how his notice was in the wrong place and was bound to mislead motorists he merely shrugged and obviously couldn’t care less. This is the sort of thing which councillor Davey condones and maybe encourages. How else do you explain his silence?

It’s probably worth repeating that this Vice-Chairman of the Transport Overview Committee is the same impotent councillor John Davey who pronounced the changes in Florence Road “absolutely bonkers” and said he wasn’t sure he believed Andrew Bashford’s justification for the vandalising of Abbey Road, Belvedere. What has John Davey ever done to justify a vote next May?

 

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