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Permission to Park
1 Sept 2009
Parking permits are coming .......... to the road ......... where we live
The council have prepared a scheme and have put on a show at the parish hall. I sense that they have made up their minds about this, but political expediency demands that the public must be consulted.
Plans were posted and the public were invited to inspect the plans, and also to inspect the planning officers that prepared the plans.
I am quite certain that the planning officers had a torrid evening convincing the public at this meeting, that what they proposed was a good idea. More people turned up for this meeting than turned up for the recent local elections that took place in the same hall, because after all, parking the car is more important than democracy.
Every member of the public that turned up was antipathetic to the scheme, but it seemed to me that no two people had the same agenda.
People complained about the charge of £15 per annum; some complained that they already pay for parking control and others cited the example of other boroughs where parking permits were announced at a modest £15, but subsequently escalated to an annual charge of over £200; this would have course have happened, once the revenue-raising potential of parking permits was established by the borough.
At the meeting, people complained about, for example, the town planners, who allowed development of flat conversions without demanding parking provision accommodate the additional drivers.
Shopkeepers complained about their customers having nowhere to park.
The unpopular commuters seemed to be unrepresented at the meeting, but maybe they have rights in this also. Commuters do need to travel to London to make a living and they prefer to park their cars in the road where we live because they can do so for free. This should not surprise town planners at the local authority because the car park designed to meet the needs of commuters, is not free, far from it.
Therefore, a problem has been created by basic economics and town planners.
People complain about not being able to park in their own road in front of their own homes and get extremely agitated and even post their own home-made “No Parking” signs. This annoys the Monks because parking is not allowed on our side of the road, and wherever we park, it is always in front of someone else’s house.
We live in a Victorian street not designed for the motor car and the consequential need for parking. There is enough room for everybody but some neighbours are determined to get more of their fair share of the available space to accommodate all, and these occasional abuses soon get tongues wagging. See
In this way neighbours have learnt that this or that piece of road here will accommodate two or three cars, and if you park there the trash truck wont get around that bend on a Tuesday.
Neighbours have learnt to buy small cars that will park in those small gaps between a tree and a lamp post, or a random yellow line, which may be more annoying than helpful. And then we have all the crossovers that go nowhere. Yes, there are greedy parkers out there, but on the whole, neighbours get by, united not universally, but nevertheless united by the common enemy, .... the commuter who has been sent to our road by the town planners.
I have had my run-ins with parking officials, but only when they get it wrong and don’t care to put it right. So have these town planners got it right? Only if I am a chocolate Fudge Cake.
We park must frequently directly across the road, where there is a space to accommodate two cars. This mean that 6 cars are chasing 2 spaces, but now if theses plans are approved 6 cars will be chasing 1 space.
It is quite possible that the council are not proposing to solve the problem of the commuters that are exploiting the residential status of the road in which they choose to park all day, but that they are out to raise money to sell the residential road to the highest bidder.
It is proposed that parking permits are to be sold to non-residents for £250 per annum.
Apparently I now live in a car park.
shoestringonline.co.uk
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