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News and Comment December 2012

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17 December (Part 1) - Parking charges up again - percentage : infinite

Parking charges going up againI always take a look at the Public Notices that Bexley council puts in the News Shopper each week, though it’s not always easy to work out what is being proposed. I’d guess most people don’t bother, nor do they stop to read scraps of paper affixed to lamp posts etc.

The following is typical of the responses to the news that evening, overnight and Sunday charges are being introduced to yet more areas of the borough…


Your Saturday blog about the creeping movement towards full 24/7 pay parking does not seem to have any rhyme or reason apart from the obvious of raising revenue. They seem to be targeting a few roads in each part of the borough. Not obvious how or why they have been selected.

From my knowledge of the roads in your photos I’d hazard a guess that they are targeting roads with terraced housing and not much off street parking so that by charging 24/7 they hope to catch residents when they come home from work and who normally park on the road outside their houses.

If this is their hope then as with their other measures it is likely to be circumvented by residents squeezing cars on to front gardens however small.

They have not included Townley Road where all properties already have driveways for off road parking. Of the road in your photo a major effect is likely to be on the Sunday congregation at the adjacent church since they only have a small car park. Are the council not obliged to give some sort of traffic based reasons why 24/7 changes are deemed appropriate? e.g. Easing traffic flow/removing congestion or some such twaddle however spurious.

Without some basis being given which could then be disputed; on what grounds would objections be considered? Any sort of guidance you could give to your blog readers to help them object effectively might encourage them to do so.


I’m not sure I can give advice on parking matters. I am rather proud of never giving Bexley council a bean for parking in my 26 years in the borough, it’s the sort of question I would have passed to Notomob before its demise.

As the writer indicates, one really needs to know what is in their devious minds before an effective challenge can be mounted. I suspect it might be possible to formulate a Freedom of Information request seeking the correspondence which led to the decision to make the changes and maybe discover what imaginary problem they are trying to solve. Too much advice giving has in the past led to being embroiled in hugely time consuming activities for which there is simply not enough time in the day.

One piece of advice I could perhaps give: stop voting the same old faces into power! They only abuse it.

 

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