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Letter 6 Reply
31 May 2002
Dear Mr Tarrant
Plantation Road, Slade Green - Request For Additional Pavement Parking Bays
Thank you for your letter dated 14 May following our correspondence about your request for additional pavement parking bays to be installed in Plantation Road at its junction with Slade Green Road.
I believe I have answered most of the points raised in your letter in our previous correspondence. However, I have attached a copy of a leaflet the Council has produced explaining its pavement parking policy, which may answer other queries you may have.
Turning to the three questions you have asked in your letter:
- It is legislation that goes back many years that states the principle purpose of a highway is only for traffic to pass and repass. Nowhere in statute is any right to park on a highway automatically conferred on motorists.
- In the case of most roads the use of the land over which roads pass is vested in the authority for highway purposes. The highway authority, which in some cases is the local authority or may be another body, who will have ownership of the land and be responsible for maintenance of the roads.
- Construction and upkeep of the majority of highways is publicly funded, either from Central Government funds, or in the case of maintenance, from local Government funds.
As far as pavement parking policy is concerned, each local authority in London is responsible for its own policy as long as it does not contravene the Greater London Council (General Powers) Act 1974. The pavement parking policy in Bexley was decided by the former Public Works Committee in October 1993 and was reaffirmed by the former Traffic and Transport Sub-Committee in May 2000. It is this Department that is responsible for the implication of these policies.
I note your views about parking on the pavement in Plantation Road; however, I do believe I have explained in my letters why the Council cannot install any additional pavement parking bays in your road, especially so close to a junction.
Yours sincerely
Linda Jackson
Assistant Engineer