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Letter 5
RE: FOOTWAY PARKING IN PLANTATION ROAD
08/04/02
Dear Linda,
Thank you for your reply to our letter dated 23/09/01 regarding our parking problems in Plantation Road. However, due to the situation remaining unchanged, people are still getting penalty notices for doing the sensible thing and we feel that this is completely unacceptable. The situation as it stands is contrary to commonsense and safety and needs to be resolved to our satisfaction. We understand that, as you say, the council may have met its criteria but it has not met ours. If you do not feel that you can provide additional bays we would be happy to accept blanket exemption for Plantation Road. This would prove to be the simplest and most immediate option and would absolve the council from any complications regarding restrictions. We do not, in the mean time, feel that we can let this matter rest with the situation as it is. Could you, therefore, please inform us as to who is responsible for the introduction of the footway parking ban and who we would have to write to in order to complain about it? Because, at the moment this policy appears to be causing more problems than it has solved. In fact it has wasted much of people's time, cost people money, and wasted council resources that presumably could have been better utilised elsewhere. There are other ways of dealing with the infringement of access to pedestrians i.e. prams and wheelchairs, and all this policy has done is to shift the problem onto the road, thereby now causing infringement of access for the motorist, as well as all the other related problems. Prams and wheelchairs are a minority and although we recognise that they have to be considered, doing it this way is unfairly penalising the majority. That is not democratic. In our road, for example, there is plenty of room for prams and wheelchairs even with cars parked on the footway. Therefore, a footway parking ban is totally inappropriate and Bexley Council, as well as wasting our time and money in undeserved penalty notices and vehicle damage, has presumably charged us out of our council tax for the privilege of having white lines painted on the pavement. Well thanks very much, but we like things the way they were before. We therefore wish to complain about the fact that Bexley Council feels that it is entitled to behave in this manner towards its constituents and would ask that it stops wasting our time and money by trying to enforce what is an unwelcome, poorly thought out, profoundly irritating, 'sledgehammer-to-crack-a-nut' scheme. If you are worried about pedestrian access then you could state a minimum access width of three feet and instead of spending money on painting parking bays all over the place, give the parking attendants a tape measure each. Then everyone can be accommodated. If not a tape measure, a piece of string three feet in length would serve equally well. In fact, we could all have one.
We would also like to complain about the fact that, at the moment, Bexley Council appear to be the only local authority in this area that are enforcing this ban. Dartford, Gravesham and Bromley Councils are not. Why is it that Bexley Council see fit to enforce this impractical and pain in the backside policy when there is a choice? Surely by now Bexley Council must be aware that it is causing its constituents more problems than it is solving? Does it not care about this? Maybe other local authorities realise that this scheme is unworkable and impractical and if they did try and enforce it, their constituents would incur all the very same problems that we have had to put up with. To put it another way, when the roads and footways were first built, nobody envisaged the world as it is now. Otherwise things may have been different. But as they are not, compromise has got to be the name of the game. This means a policy that meets in the middle and is perhaps neither one thing or the other. In other words not extreme and preferably accommodating everyone, not just the chosen few. In our opinion, a footway parking ban per se is extreme and not appropriate to the way the roads and footways were originally constructed. We therefore feel that it should be time to think again.
People may even begin to think that Bexley Council is using this impractical footway parking ban as a crafty means of boosting its coffers, because after all, thirty pounds for a parking ticket that takes two minutes to write out is a bit steep. It doesn't take a genius to work out that someone somewhere is making a lot of money at the expense of the innocent public trying to go about their business. Perhaps somebody amongst the 'powers that be' had that very same notion when they decided to enforce the ban, because this ban does, in many instances, go against the grain of commonsense, and may we also add, it goes against the will of the people too. This is supposed to be a democracy and therefore the will of the people should be paramount. We are paying the council's wages and one would think that we should be entitled to expect a quality of service that meets our satisfaction. Council and government employees are supposed to be public servants, there to serve the public, and not to lay down laws that are contrary to commonsense and contrary to the will of the people that pay their wages. It is also not good enough for you to say that you don't want the responsibility because you are the people causing the problems. You can't be involved one minute and then wash your hands of responsibility the next. We are dealing here with problems intrinsic to the very nature of our road and housing infrastructure, which we know is imperfect. These problems have to be addressed positively with that in mind. We understand what you are saying about not wishing to encourage people to park unsafely, but, at the moment, that is exactly what you are doing by not allowing us to park on the footway and so forcing us to park on the road. We reiterate that this impedes vision, impedes access and makes vehicles more susceptible to damage.
We also feel that, as it is not a perfect world and individual situations can vary quite a lot, it is not always practical to generalise when making decisions. The rule book has never been perfect or comprehensive enough to cover all differing situations and therefore is perhaps best used as a guide and not as a rule. Rules can often be seen to be inappropriate, out of date, or plain simply wrong, and there is certainly no rule that covers all circumstances or eventualities. Judging Plantation Road, for example, on an individual basis, it is fair to say that one of the prime issues is the fact that vehicles do park at the end of the road and in this instance, therefore, it would be better for the very reasons, both we, and you in fact, have quoted, if the vehicles were parked on the footway. There is no real debate about this. Everybody knows, in this instance, it is better, safer, and more practical if they do park on the footway. So, application of the rule book in this instance is moving us down a road that is less safe and less practical and not serving the best interests of the people, which in theory the rule book was originally designed to do. In fact, we are being punished for being sensible and that cannot be right. Granting our request would be a positive step in the direction of safety and commonsense, as well as giving the residents what they would like and should deserve. There is nothing wrong with that.
We therefore reiterate that, with regard to Plantation Road, there are three options, any one of which we would be happy to except.
1. Additional parking bays, as already requested
2. Remodelling of the footways to a more realistic and practical size
3. Blanket exemption for Plantation Road
We would prefer the third option, being the simplest and most immediate.
We look forward to your reply with any further points you may have for us to consider and the information we have requested. Thank you.
Yours faithfully,
D.J. Tarrant