28 October (Part 3) - More money for nothing. Extortion in Abbey Wood
The man you see here is Mike Frizoni whose
job it is (among others) to suggest how Bexley council should implement its parking policy, and after it is rubber stamped implements it with gusto. Hence the constant
imposition of more yellow lines and the
eradication of any remaining
free spaces close to popular destinations. His motive is to maximise income
which will help him cling on to his £9,469 special allowance which boosts his
salary to well over £100k. The way he acts you could be forgiven for thinking he
would encourage Bexley’s parking contractor NSL to issue more penalty notices by
fair means or foul. Let me give you an example which I see several days a week.
Because
Crossrail took away a lot
of parking spaces near Abbey Wood Station Frizoni converted two long
Residents’ Parking Bays in Abbey Road to mixed use,
i.e. Residents’ and Pay and Display. Circumstances are the same on both sides of the
road but I usually pass on the northern side so what follows relates only to that.
Until last year there was a single long bay for residents with an 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.
restriction. It was and still is around 150 yards long and a Pay and Display
machine was installed close to each extremity. However Pay and Display users
cannot park anywhere within those 150 yards, the Pay and Display section is not very long and
delineated by a white dividing line.
Non residents who pay the £3.80 fee are not given any information about where exactly they
can park and only those users fully aware of the despicable deviousness of Bexley council
would give the situation a second thought, they just park close to the machine
and go to work; what else would any reasonable person do?
If they were to look for a dividing line they may not find one because a
residents’ permit holder can park anywhere which includes letting a 4x4 straddle
the line; not that that exacerbates the problem a great deal because as
you can see in Photo 2 the line is barely visible anyway.
So
very often an Abbey Wood station commuter will pay Bexley council an
extortionate £1.90 an hour to park in a bay within spitting
distance of the ticket machine and be entirely unaware of the
smudge in the road or its significance. The crooks who run Bexley council might consider
it to be to be a legal white line but few others will.
When
I first spotted the ticketed Mercedes yesterday the smudge was entirely obscured by a
vehicle but by the time I had returned with a camera it had gone. Not far away was a second
vehicle which had suffered an identical fate as the Merc.
At last week’s Places Scrutiny Committee meeting, Mr. Ben Stephens said he doesn’t bother
to put the full set of instructions on parking signs because it would be
impractical to do so. I can understand that he might expect some common sense
from motorists but it would appear that it is a very one sided argument. Whatever the IQ of Abbey Wood commuters they are unlikely to work out
where they might be safe from persecution. They probably will have more success
in working out that Bexley council operates a scam.
For the record, the white line at the other end of the 150 yard long bay is in
very much better condition, but it is still usually hidden under a resident’s vehicle.