7 December (Part 2) - When is a Consultation not a Consultation? (When it gives the wrong answer!)
For 35 years Bexley Council ignored the parking problems they engineered into my
road and others nearby. Planning approval was gained in the middle 1980s and it
included designated parking areas but they were never marked out. Occasionally
that created an access problem but more often it created a danger on a blind
bend and the following photos may give you an idea of what was going on. Some
drivers have never read the Highway Code.
Old photos. No yellow lines.
Bexley Council simply didn’t care and refused to put yellow lines on minor
residential junctions. I suppose they had their reasons; there are probably
hundreds of them and the likelihood of them providing a decent PCN income is
pretty much zero. (Go on Google Earth and browse around your area as I have just done.
Most corners are not embellished with double yellow lines, sometimes not even
where minor roads meet a main road.)
And then the Elizabeth line came along and made what had always been bad, far worse.
But still Bexley Council did nothing; not even when I sent them pictures of
their own refuse trucks which couldn’t get through. Acknowledge my existence? No, don’t be silly.
But one day the police couldn’t get through and on another no one could get
through at all and Councillor Hinkley began to take an interest. Eventually
yellow lines were
painted on corners and most of our problems went away, unless of course
Kelly Wilkinson was visiting.
Best part of a year later, in response to continued complaints, Bexley Council
sent out a
Consultation document to see if residents would prefer a Controlled Parking
Zone. Note that the Council called it a Consultation because now that the
results are not what they were hoping for it is merely an informal survey. An
informal survey so unimportant that it was sent to every address in the area by Royal Mail at 80 pence a go.
Nothing much has been heard of it since. There were off the record comments at
the Transport Users’ Sub-Committee that the Lesnes Abbey CPZ would go ahead and
residents would be informed by the end of November but adjacent CPZ areas might
not. I understand that the Belvedere CPZ was not so popular. Lesnes houses
mainly have off road parking areas while that is more of a rarity in Belvedere,
There was some indirect news buried in the Agenda of
the recent Cabinet meeting. While recording mitigations against the financial squeeze it said this…
In Place [Directorate], it [mitigation] relates mainly to Parking, where use of Felixstowe [Road] car park is lower than anticipated, controlled parking zones no
longer going ahead or where there is insufficient resource to deliver the review of on and off-street parking spaces.
What does that mean apart from Bexley Council
acknowledging that charging £16 a day to park when next door Sainsbury’s with a more easily accessible car park will
let you stay 7 to 11 for a fiver is the sort of damn fool thing to be expected
of Bexley Council? Does it mean that the CPZ cash cow is in jeopardy? If so does that mean
the old ones where residents rejected longer hours or the new ones too?
Are they so short of staff that everything has ground to a halt?
If the Lesnes CPZ goes ahead by popular demand as informally stated at the
Transport meeting but Belvedere’s, for example, does not there will be some
unfortunate displacement effects as Liz line commuters jockey for position.
Maybe I could rent out my own drive?