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News and Comment October 2020

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15 October (Part 1) - History repeating itself?

TweetMy first trip to the coast this year was cancelled due to illness - not mine - and so I have the time to continue tarting up, where possible, the old blogs which had fallen behind modern web standards. In doing so I was reminded what a peak year 2011 was for Bexley Council lies. (Example old blog.)

In particular Cabinet Member Craske - not yet stood down from his job for personal reasons, ahem! - was telling all and sundry that despite his jacking up of car parking charges, including a near tripling of the price of CPZ permits, Bexley still had the cheapest parking in South East London.

Like so much of what he said back then it was totally without foundation and I was moved to produce a table of charges in Bexley and neighbouring boroughs. (†) It showed that there was only one car park more expensive than Bexley, the one nearest to the Cutty Sark in Greenwich.

Bexley was charging £1 an hour in the middle of Bexleyheath and 80 pence outside. Bromley’s charges ranged from 20 pence to 40 pence an hour except in the town centre where it was 80 pence. A fair number of the smaller shopping centres were free as were Dartford’s except in the town centre where the charge was 50 pence an hour.

Yesterday Councillor John Davey dipped his toe into Craske’s murky waters but he is not silly enough to lie, he merely gives gives his opinion that the charges here are cheap. I did a quick check…

Bromley’s charges outside the centre of town have risen from a maximum of 40 pence to 60 pence. Eltham is a pound and Dartford is still 50 pence - a pound for two hours.

John Davey may think £1·30 - soon to be £1·70 - is cheap as did successful businessman Councillor Dourmoush at the Budget Meeting last week but they are enough to keep me out of Bexleyheath. It’s not just the charges but the constant risk of a PCN should one make a mistake - like not being an expert on my smart phone.

Should I update the 2011 charges table?

† Not yet mobile phone friendly. Sorry.

 

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