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?