Banner
any day today rss X

News and Comment September 2009

Index: 2009201020112012201320142015201620172018201920202021202220232024

18 September - Parking disgrace

Cars soon after 7am Look where the warning sign is The ticket Gestapo have been busy The ticket Gestapo have been busy

I noticed yesterday afternoon that a yellow parking restriction notice had gone up at the extremities of the parking space commuters use on their journey to Abbey Wood station. There were none of the cones or road markings that Bexley’s parking gestapo have previously put out on the same section of road while Bexley were vandalising it. I anticipated the likely outcome and noted that by 7 a.m. a line of cars had been left there, their drivers having been misled by the inadequate notices. I returned just after 11am and sure enough some mindless numbskull had been around punishing council tax payers ensnared in Bexley’s trap.

The photos indicate what has happened. The parking space is divided into two, a short bit near the bus stop is within a controlled parking zone (but is nevertheless marked ‘Free’. The rest of it is also marked ‘Free’. This morning, by the bus stop, was a blue arrow of the sort that one sees before road works and immediately afterwards there were cones in the road. The first driver must have seen the obstruction ahead with the yellow restriction notice adjacent to it (if he saw the notice at all of course) and sensibly parked in the Free section outside the controlled zone, against which there was no notice and no cones. Others naturally pulled up behind him.

By just after 11am eleven or twelve cars had been ticketed. No one seems to have noticed that all the road markings were removed in April as part of the destruction of Abbey Road and only the notice on a pole saying ‘Free’ remains. But motorists still got tickets. The council has form for stepping outside the law if it leads to additional persecution of residents. I immediately emailed John Davey the ward councillor about this latest piece of Bexley idiocy but heard nothing.

At 12.30 one of my network of informants phoned to say the yellow notices had been removed. Now whether this is because the councillor took action or because the road work wasn’t being done and the signs might as well go I do not know, but I photographed the new situation and stuck an explanatory note on the windscreens of ten cars. One or two cars may have disappeared before I managed to get there.

I have been driving for 47 years and never picked up a parking ticket but with devious tactics like this even I wouldn’t stand a chance. We have to strike back against the bastards (sorry there really is no other word apart from four letter ones) who have no other motive than to trick and penalise motorists. The parking adjudicator’s contact details are given below. I know someone who is on good terms with the boss of the national adjudication office, below is for London only. I’m told they like nothing better than putting council jobsworths in their place.

If you wish to comment on this, please use the Contact page. Incidentally, the ward councillor never did respond. You would think he would if it was him who had tried to put the situation right, instead I am left to conclude that the notices were removed around mid-day because they were no longer needed and to hell with the expense and confusion caused to ten or more motorists. I am also slowly coming to the conclusion that the councillor for Lesnes Abbey ward is well into chocolate fireguard territory.

P.S. During the early evening of 18th September I discovered that the inadequate warning signs were removed by a council official from their roads department. He seemed entirely unconcerned about the confusion he had caused and apparently cared less about the unfair fines that had resulted. And yes I do know his name. There was no contact from the councillor. Clearly his loyalties lay with the bureaucrats and not the people who elected him.

Official Parking appeals service
A more useful appeals service (but not free.)

 

Return to the top of this page
Bonkers is a cookie free zone. Not a single one