15 August - Craske’s mission to make parking more expensive; or even impossible
Today
is the day the parking meters around the centre of Bexleyheath are no more, replaced
by parking by mobile phone only. To use the system, you must have a credit or
debit card and a mobile phone with credit on it. It helps to have registered
yourself with the company operating the scheme but for many people unfamiliar
with the system it will be difficult to park legally today as the large number
of windscreens bearing penalty notices bear witness. Maybe I should add, if the notice
in Chapel Road is typical, it would be an advantage to be eight feet tall so that you can read it.
If you don’t own a mobile phone, then buzz off, Bexley council doesn’t want you doing business at the local shops.
If you do own a mobile phone - I don’t think I am alone in not having one - you
will have to pay for any phone call that may be required at the appropriate rate,
the usual parking charge and ten pence on top of whatever that adds up to. The notice
(click Photo 2 to read it) speaks of SMS, iPhone Apps and Android. I think I know what an
SMS might be but Android is something I had lo look up in the dictionary. It
says “automaton in the form of a human being”. So that’s Craske himself then. A
heartless machine shaped a bit like a human being.
Soon after publishing the words above I received the following from a resident of Townley Road…
Have seen your blog about parking in Chapel Road. Craske will need
to order his gestapo to issue as many penalty charge notices as possible to make up for
the loss of revenue elsewhere. Townley Road used to have a long line of meters which were
mostly occupied all day long by a succession of parkers. Today there have been periods of
none, sometimes one and a maximum of two at any time. Drivers have been arriving to park,
been thoroughly bemused by the new arrangements and driven away again. I await with
interest the reaction to the new arrangements from Bexleyheath Broadway traders.