1 December (Part 2) - Priceless parking perks - Taking the P?
Bexley council staff can buy a permit which allows their vehicle to be parked in contravention of the parking regulations when required to do so on council business.
I’m sure the emergency services must encounter situations where they are
required to park where other people shouldn’t but for the life of me I cannot
visualize a situation where council staff would need the same concession; at
least not a situation which business people don’t encounter every day while
trying to conduct their essential activities.
If the domiciliary care workers are
not eligible for a permit, why should anyone else be?
Every few months someone sends me a message to the effect that council staff must be having a meeting
because a group of them has taken over a lot of street parking.
The roads south of Highland Road are often cited, sometimes Townley Road. The
suggestion is that I go and photograph them but as I am not aware of the times
of council staff meetings it’s not a very practical suggestion.
One
might have thought that the practice would stop now that everyone is
supposed to be under the same Watling Street roof, but apparently not.
Then someone said that one or two or three cars are parked all day every day in
Tower Road, which is very close to the new Civic Offices, and they are protected by a Bexley council parking permit without any obvious excuse.
It would have been even more helpful if I had been told what a Bexley council
staff parking permit looks like because the one I photographed today could be
almost anything, but I would guess the CP stands for Car Parking. Click photos to enlarge.
These staff parking permits used to be dished out pretty much on demand but all
that changed in 2010 when councillor Peter Craske was cracking down on all
motorists as hard as he could. Even so, £150 a year is a pretty cheap price to
be able to park almost anywhere in the borough for a year.
Perhaps the driver of GJ07 OTL was out “working in the community” and he wasn’t
simply “attending a scheduled meeting in the council buildings” just a few yards away.
Possible… but likely?