28 June (Part 3) - More parking nonsense
Charles
of Crayford is still getting daily parking tickets despite buying a quarterly Residents’
Parking Permit at the beginning of the month. The letter on display is on
Bexley’s notepaper and says the permit will be sent shortly. The photo, once
again, is by a concerned neighbour. I have concluded that a letter stuck to a
car windscreen for a month is no longer Confidential, so if you look at the
larger version you may be able to read it.
The BELL issue seems to have loosened some tongues at Bexley council. I have
received three reports that Bexley’s erstwhile parking manager, Tina Brooks, much criticised
for her ignorance of the regulations by
Notomob, did not make the
transfer to Bromley. She has gone. It is alleged she may not be the only bad habit
that hasn’t made it across to Bromley.
I can hardly believe this is true, but given the way Bexley often is, you can’t be sure.
Consider this. A dozy Parking Attendant makes out a ticket at 17:35 and plonks
it on the windscreen of a car parked in a bay restricted to 17:30. Dozy
attendant thinks he is patrolling a 18:30 bay. Ticket gets invalidated in the
office because it has been issued contrary to regulations. Motorists coughs up
the money anyway. Obviously the money should be returned but in Bexley it goes
into some sort of slush fund.
Staff query this with managers as they are unhappy with acting outside the law.
Managers tell them to get on with it. It is not clear from the informant’s
report whether the practice is being continued now that Bromley has taken over
the back office services. Nor is it clear that the informant is not yet another
disgruntled employee, but if I was a betting man…