It's almost a year since Labour lost control of Camden council after decades in power. Part of the reason was residents' anger at the authoritarian nature of parking controls in the borough. The incoming Liberal Democrat and Conservative coalition promised to take a more
sensitive approach.
A year on, how are they doing?
A recent report in the
Ham & High suggests parking controls are as extreme as ever. A resident of Fitzjohn's Avenue returned from a trip abroad to discover that the council had removed and crushed her car after suspending a parking bay while she was away.
Far from seeking to ensure that officials take a more sensitive approach, the Conservative councillor in charge of parking, Mike Greene, gives the impression of condoning such behaviour. As quoted by the Ham & High, he did not appear to regard crushing a car, which was displaying a valid permit, as an extreme and reasonable sanction seeking. Instead he sought to blame the owner of the car. He said residents should get a neighbour to check on their car whenever they are away - as if inner-city London was some halcyon idyll where people are intimately familiar with their neighbours and in the habit of leaving their car keys with them.
Closer to home, residents of Westbere Road recently found that they had been given about fourteen hours notice of a parking bay suspension. That is to say, notice was given at around 6pm the day before the suspension was to come into effect. By this time many people had retired to their homes for the evening and were unaware of the need to move their cars. Parking officials were out early the next morning ticketing vehicles and preparing to tow them away. One resident, who reached her car just in time, found the officials rude and abrasive and not at all concerned that insufficient notice of the suspension had been given.
A more sensitive approach to parking control? You have three years - until the next local elections - to make up your mind.
