5 January - The square root of sweet Fanny Adams
Today’s
rail strike has made no discernible difference to the commuter parking situation
around Abbey Wood station. The Elizabeth line is presumably operating normally
and attracting even more commuters to the area. Meanwhile Bexley Council is doing its
level best to make the situation worse. It had two extra years to plan for
Crossrail but what did they do apart from blaming Sadiq Khan for the delayed
opening? Absolutely nothing apart from reducing the number of Free parking
spaces.
Its most recent act of pure genius was to imposes a £15 charge to park on
the wide streets nearest to the station and did not have the brain power to
recognise what the knock on effects would be.
Whilst photos of poor parking in my road have been
posted here for many years,
I first formally raised the issues with Bexley Council on 6th September 2022 but
got nowhere with it. My Councillor suffered similarly. Bexley Council is still stuck in the mindset which was
official policy six years ago. That is do nothing.
One of my neighbours
(@nickyevansbsl) is doing rather well on the publicity front having got the
parking issue into a couple of regional newspapers.
What bothers me more is not the parking as such, it is the consequent road blocking, nose
to kerb parking which causes me to drive on the footpath occasionally and the parking on blind corners.
Bexley Council’s lame excuse for doing nothing to help residents and improve
safety standards is that it requires public consultation. It may be true that there is a huge amount of red tape to be
navigated before a Controlled Parking Zone can be implemented but there are no
such impediments to enforcing the Highway Code with double yellow lines on corners.
I sent the final photo below to
Parking Enforcement in the hope that
the owner will get a ticket and learn his lesson. The car is more than 50 centimetres from the kerb.
Whilst out taking the photographs shown here one resident came out of his house to suggest we get together and write a letter of complaint to Bexley
Council. Obviously someone unfamiliar with the ways of Bexley Council. When our
Councillors get nowhere with them, what hope is there for the long suffering residents?
Note: At a time when parking was not an issue, the late
1990s, Bexley Council consulted
residents of the roads pictured above but did not implement a CPZ. Now that things are
far worse they won’t get off their backsides.