19 September - Walk for an extra two or three minutes or pay £3.80. What would you do?
The
half expected Abbey Wood parking chaos following
the Felixstowe
Road closure didn’t materialise, at least not on the
south side of the railway, confirmed by people living between five minutes
and 15 seconds walk of the station. The fact that the station car park is
still open will be a factor but my guess is that the users of Felixstowe
Road car park come from Thamesmead and they are just as loath to cross the
Harrow Manorway viaduct as southern dwellers are.
The lack of parking problems has not stopped Bexley council pursuing its
money making schemes and it is now apparent how many of the Abbey Road
residents’ parking bays will become pay and display. All of them (†). The published
traffic order didn’t say. It will be interesting to see how much money is
collected in parking fees. Not as much as in fine revenue I suspect.
Mike Frizoni’s (Deputy Director of Public Realm Management, £108,622 per annum)
malign influence on the borough is spreading like a cancer. Every week he
announces several more roads which are to have parking restrictions imposed and
this week the centre of Sidcup gets the Frizoni treatment. Following
the
removal of all yellow lines in the centre of Bexleyheath - replaced by a
single sign on each of the entry points - the same arrangements are to be applied to Sidcup.
† Some extra while lines subsequently appeared, restricting the paid parking
spaces to a short section adjacent to each of the four ticket machines. Rather
badly painted it should be said, not solid white but in one instance at least,
more of a chalky dusting.