4 February - Parking meters for the chop?
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.