Banner
any day today rss X

News and Comment September 2023

Index: 2009201020112012201320142015201620172018201920202021202220232024

27 September - Wen do you think Chloe might reply? Wen do you think the Council might act?

Yellow boxes Another Moneybox location has become known thanks to a BIB reader but Bexley Council remains officially silent.

I wrote seeking the information from Bexley Council at the weekend


Dear Ms. Wenbourne,
Could you please point me to the URL of the justification document that the Cabinet Member signed to authorise seven more yellow box junctions and their location?
many thanks,
Malcolm Knight
DA17 5RJ


But three days later the subject remains on the secret list.

One correspondent has already fallen foul of what was claimed to be a new junction, although the description leads me to suspect it was one from an earlier Council thieving spree. Fortunately the lady concerned was not so easily fleeced and successfully contested it on the grounds that her exit was clear when she moved into the trap.

An email from way back in 2016 said this (abbreviated)…


Well it finally arrived - a Penalty Charge Notice for Entering and Stopping in a box junction.
Bexley Council evidence is a short video clip. (Outdated link redacted). Contravention code 31 and vehicle No GN51XXX.
The video clip only starts after I am already half way across the box and after the black car has shot out of Danson Lane and taken the space which was available when I entered the box. If the clip was started a few seconds earlier it would show that when I entered the box my exit was indeed clear and hence no offence committed. Bexley Council though would rather edit the video to avoid showing this - issue a PCN and hope the recipient just pays up without argument. Not a chance with this recipient. Can I use your blog and photos of 9th October as supporting evidence?


A nice trick to edit the video to avoid showing the proof that the manoeuvre was not illegal but entirely typical of Bexley’s cheating Council. Unfortunately a shortened clip cannot prove that there was not a clear exit either so my correspondent won his case on appeal. The offence is entering a Moneybox when there is not a clear exit, not simply stopping in it.

Our old friend @tonyofsidcup took exception to my summary of July’s Transport Sub-Committee meeting, in particular the ninth item.


• No school has pressurised Bexley Council towards the installation of ‘Safe School Streets’.


I don’t always agree with @tony on road related issues but there can be no denying that he is a persistent campaigner. He is midway through writing to 80 plus school heads to see if Bexley’s claim is anything like true. He has shown me some of the early replies but requested that I do not report them in any detail at this stage. Let’s just say that some head teachers have a different perception to our complacent Council and received no response to the pleas they have made. Quelle Surprise!


Bad parking Bad parkingContinuing with the road theme, the double yellow lines in Carrill Way have improved accessibility and the parking displacement has not been too severe because there were simply no nearby parking spaces into which displacement could occur; except for one. This happens to be right outside my own house. On some days my immediate neighbour is unable to access his own drive because of inconsiderate commuter parking as shown here.

An unthinking Bexley Council has designed-in this nonsense and always refuses to do anything about it. They will not issue a PCN because strictly speaking there is no offence and they will not allow my neighbour’s drive to be registered as a dropped kerb because they won’t accept shared drives for registration.

Although they accept end on parking on the other side of the road which occasionally blocks the road, they refuse to see WG10 TKX as an end parker and fine him for being more than 50 centimetres from the kerb. It is Catch 22 from every point of view.

@tonyofsidcup never ceases to chide me privately for my support of Cabinet Member Richard Diment and until he posts on-line obscenities about me like his predecessor did, I will probably remain suitably biased, but until Chloe Wenbourne tells me his reasons for justifying another set of Yellow Moneytraps I shall have to wonder if @tonyofsidcup has a point.

Note: The new location revealed by the BiB reader is said to be by the Methodist Church in Bellegrove Road, Welling.

 

Return to the top of this page
Bonkers is a cookie free zone. Not a single one