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News and Comment February 2011

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4 February - Parking meters for the chop?

Headless parking meter Last month someone from Bexleyheath reported that parking meters were being replaced by double yellow lines without the council bothering to go through the required legal procedures. The council said they were doing it because parking meters had been stolen and Howard Ward-Corderoy made it clear that the council’s motives were pure malice against motorists. Fortunately my correspondent persuaded Mr. Corderoy that what he had done was illegal and, only temporarily it is true, free parking is now available where the meters once were.

Now someone has reported something similar in Welling. One parking meter head in Edmund Road is missing and the adjacent one has been covered. No one knows why. Just because one meter is stolen doesn’t mean its neighbour will be, using that logic all the meters in Welling should be taken away and it’s very hard to see how a canvas bag can stop theft anyway. However arbitrarily putting a meter out of order allows extra revenue from fines to be collected.

My informer says he saw a car at the bay with the covered meter ticketed and the traffic warden said that parking there is now forbidden and that the council was going to put in double yellow lines. It’s odd that parking is said to be legal in the first meter-less bay but not at the ‘bagged’ one. If the meters are being stolen or old ones for which no spares are available are vandalised its obviously a problem but for victimizing motorists to always be the council’s first response is wrong and it’s about time they erred on the side of simple justice when faced with problems rather than taking “drastic action” as Ward-Corderoy boasted.

 

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