Main Categories
Letter 4
RE: ADDITIONAL FOOTWAY PARKING IN PLANTATION ROAD
23/09/01
Dear Linda,
Thank you for your reply to our letter dated 21/08/01 regarding the footway parking in Plantation Road. It appears from your letter that you feel there is nothing you can do to aid our situation. This is somewhat unacceptable to us for several reasons, some of which were pointed out in our previous letter. We do not find satisfaction in the viewpoint that it is our problem to find parking space for our vehicles and that there is nothing you can do to help. In this case, at least, we have pointed out what can be done to help and we would like to see it done. There are safety issues at stake here as well as practical problems to solve and, although they have been made apparent in previous correspondence, for some reason they are being ignored. Why is that? To us, the issues we have raised appear to be obvious and commonsense. If you are saying that the law is preventing the application of commonsense then the law needs to be changed. However, from your letter it appears that you are quoting a recommendation from the highway code and not therefore a law or something that is enshrined in stone. As vehicles do park at the end of the road anyway, it would obviously be safer and more practical if they were parked on the footway. We can therefore see no reason as to why you cannot see your way to granting our request and reiterate that practical commonsense and safety are the important factors. We must also point out that footway parking in Slade Green Road on the west side of Plantation Road is allowed to within the width of the footway of Plantation Road, exactly what we are requesting for Plantation Road and contrary to the highway code recommendation that you have quoted as an 'excuse' for not granting our request. This recommendation, which is a safety guideline, in this case, appears to be guiding us away from the safest and most sensible option. In fact, it is the vehicles parked on the corner of Slade Green Road and not Plantation Road that are more likely to cause an obstruction of vision and the implementation of our request would actually improve matters in this area and not make it worse.
We would also like to add that, in our belief, the local authority is paid by us to manage and provide for the needs of society to the best of its ability, of which viable parking is one. If the local authority does not currently take this view we feel that it is about time that it did. People pay large amounts of money in council, road and fuel tax, they deserve better than for the local authority to wash its hands of what is an important issue just when it suits. After all, it is the local authority that paint the yellow lines everywhere. Also, Bexley Council run the Howbury Centre opposite and currently do not even provide enough parking for that, it is completely unjust therefore that, when we get the spill-over from this operation compounding our problem, we are being refused a simple request which would help improve things overnight. The suggestion that the council could apply parking restrictions at the top of the road to aid access as an alternative to allowing footway parking is completely unhelpful as it very obviously does not help solve the problem and in fact would obviously make matters worse. Why is it, when having been offered a genuine solution, the council would see fit to respond with such an irrational and unhelpful alternative suggestion? We are arguing in favour of safety and practical commonsense. What is the council arguing in favour of? If you are not prepared to work with us in accepting this simple solution, people will continue to get penalty notices unjustifiably because they still feel the need to park on the footway and therefore, in order to be fair, the only alternative is to ask that the footways be remodelled and reduced in width to a somewhat more realistic and practical size in relation to the road width so that people can park on the road without incurring such problems. We don't mind which option but we would like one or the other implemented as soon as possible. Thank you.
Yours faithfully,
D.J. Tarrant