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News and Comment April 2015

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14 April (Part 1) - Hall Place and Danson Park under attack by Bexley council?

It looks like it.

Councils across the country have been considering the use of Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) cameras which can time you in and out of a car park and levy penalty charges on those who overstay their allotted time by a few seconds. Supermarkets use the system apparently prepared to see their reputations trashed by those caught and eager to pass on their stories.

The Under Secretary of State at the Department of Transport, Robert Goodwill, wrote to all councils last September to warn them in a strongly worded letter that to go down the ANPR route using private companies in council owned car parks would not in his opinion be legal. Saturday’s blog summarised the position.

To be sure that no council was under the illusion they could ignore the Under Secretary, his department followed up with another letter four months later.Letter
As usual, click the extract to see it all (33KB PDF).

Bexley council went ahead anyway, they placed an advertisement on the London Tenders website.
Contract
It provided a link to the following document.
Scrutiny
My guess is that the reference to two busy open spaces means that Hall Place and Danson Park are to be subjected to ANPR whether it is legal or not. Maybe the council has plans to hand over ownership of those two parks to a cowboy parking company. Giving them away would perversely make their proposals legal.

Life under Bexley’s Conservative council gets worse by the day.

 

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