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Wednesday 3 November 2010

Paradox of Parking

Thinking back to my tour of Brent Council's Area Consultative Forums (ACFs), it was striking that there was more opposition to our emissions based parking permit proposals in the Wembley and Kingsbury Forums than in the south of the Borough. While I was presenting on the waste management strategy, someone else was doing a presentation on the parking stuff so I listened to it in each case. I guess people in the South are just more used to the whole idea of Controlled Parking Zones, and can see the benefits, whereas people in the North are still used to "free" parking.

What was also striking about it was the level of resentment towards any policy designed to curb car usage, combined with even more resentment of the high traffic levels in Brent. People were extremely critical of the likely traffic generation of the proposed new primary school at Preston Manor, or the existing parking problems caused by parents dropping off kids at the new ARK Academy, but just didn't seem to connect that with the idea of a need to find a way to discourage car use.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

When will the dangerous intersection where Kilburn lane meets the Harrow Road and Ladbroke Grove be sorted out? There are no proper pedestrian crossings and it is incredibly dangerous to cross.

Anonymous said...

So CPZ is all about discouraging car use? What a pile of poo! It's about making money; a stealth tax under various guises.

You're even trying to come up with additional tweaks to add additional charges e.g. emissions, so you can rake in even more money. You think you can pretend to take the moral high ground & we'll believe you, so you can squeeze extra money from this tax?!

In case you hadn't noticed it doesn't cost anyone anything to park in the street & the council has no right or business to charge.

BTW, I live in the South of the borough, have a low emissions car & my own driveway - something else for which a council charge is being considered, as yet another stealth tax.

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