PARKING SIGN
A request for a residents' only parking
sign in a Derby street has been turned down.
People living in Heather Close, Stenson Fields,
had sent a 14-name petition to Derbyshire County
Council asking for a sign to be put up in the
street.
The access road to Stenson Fields Community
Primary School is off Heather Close and governors
have banned parents from using it, so many now
park in Heather Close.
The petitioners were requesting a sign reading
"parking for residents only" but the
county council turned down the request.
The reasons given were that there were no highway
safety issues in Heather Close, there was no such
sign available and Heather Close did not meet the
criteria for a residents-only controlled parking
zone. |
CAR
PARK WANTED
Residents in a Normanton street have
lobbied Derby City Council to give them a private
car park to counter their current on-street
parking concerns. A petition containing 19
signatures from householders in Leacroft Road has
been submitted to the city council's area panel
three, a residents' forum covering Abbey,
Arboretum and Normanton wards. The residents
believe that the growth of housing on the nearby
Baseball Ground housing development will make it
harder for them to find a parking space in their
street. |
DIFFERENT
LAW
If you illegally parked on the pavement,
next to double yellow lines, at a bus stop and on
a busy road, you'd expect short thrift from the
police. However, it's a different law for the
police who parked an un-marked van on Osmaston
Park Road for three days, during the hours of
daylight, in a surveillance operation to identify
cars used in criminal activity.
A police spokesman said the van was part of the Automatic Number Plate
Recognition (ANPR) unit. These vans contain
video cameras to photograph registration plates
which then check the numbers against a computer
database to see if the vehicle is stolen or
suspected of being used in a crime.
Assistant Chief Constable Mick Creedon, of
Derbyshire Police said, "We're very
conscious of road safety and the impact on
residents, motorists and pedestrians and carry
out a full risk assessment to ensure our vehicles
are parked safely and don't cause an
obstruction." |
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ILLEGAL PARKING?
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A motorist claims he was sworn at and
threatened by a traffic warden after he took a photograph
of the council official stopped on double yellow lines.
But Derby City Council say the warden was not parked
illegally and at the time was checking that a different
car was carrying its blue disabled badge.
Waqias Bhatti said he was driving through Normanton when
he spotted the council vehicle parked illegally. He took
out his mobile phone and snapped the Streetpride van
which had the warden sitting inside. Mr Bhatti said the
warden leaned out of the window and swore at him before
saying, "I can have you done for this."
Mr Bhatti then called the police to the incident, but the
warden had driven off by the time they arrived. He has
reported the matter to Derby City Council. He said,
"Anyone who lives in the area will tell you the
parking problems are dreadful, so to see a council
official parked so blatantly on double yellow lines is
appalling. This is someone in a position of authority
whose job it is to help solve the parking problem in the
area, not add to it by parking in this way. He thinks he
is above the law." Mr Bhatti said the incident
happened in Stanton Street.
A spokesman for Derbyshire police said officers had
spoken to Mr Bhatti. He said, "We received a call to
say that a council vehicle was parked illegally on double
yellow lines and the caller said he had taken a
photograph of it. He then told officers that the warden
had been aggressive towards him and that he felt
intimidated." A spokesman for Derby City Council
said at the time of the incident the parking supervisor,
an experienced member of staff, was not parked illegally.
Instead he had stopped for two minutes while he checked,
from his vehicle, whether a different vehicle, parked on
double yellow lines, was displaying a blue disabled
person's badge.
He said, "While the parking supervisor was doing
this, another vehicle drove past him and stopped in the
middle of the road preventing him from proceeding. The
driver of this other vehicle got out of his car and
accused the parking supervisor of parking on double
yellow lines and insisted that he get out of his vehicle.
The parking supervisor did this and at this point the
photograph was taken by the other driver. The GPRS
records used by the council show that less than two
minutes elapsed between the parking supervisor driving
into and subsequently leaving Stanton Street, hence as
this time includes the time for the incident to occur, it
is clear our vehicle was not parked." (Source: Derby Evening Telegraph, Jul/11)
Comment:
So what's the difference between "parking" and
"stopping"? You might not have realised that
one existed, but it seems it does, at least in the eyes
of the city council. The authority concedes that one of
its traffic wardens had his vehicle on double yellow
lines in Stanton Street, where it was photographed by an
angry motorist. The latter finished up calling the police
after claiming he was sworn at and threatened by the
warden, a version not accepted by the council.
It said that the officer was checking up on whether
another vehicle, parked on double yellows, was displaying
a disabled person's blue badge. And it maintained that as
its record showed that the official was in Stanton Street
for less than two minutes, "it is clear our vehicle
was not parked". You might want to try that one the
next time a warden approaches you with a ticket.
"I've only been here for a couple of minutes to pop
into a shop, I'm not parking, I've just stopped."
Parking fines
of almost £500,000 have been handed out in Derby since
the city council took over patrols. Latest figures show
that by the end of March, fines worth £466,193 had been
paid, equivalent to 15,500 fines and nine times more than
police collected. But after staff and operating costs,
only £35,239 profit was made. Unlike the police, the
council can keep the money it generates from fines, but
it also has to pay the employment costs of the parking
attendants to patrol the streets.
In 2005-6, when the police were in control of issuing
tickets, just 1,750 were dished out for the whole of
Derby city and South Derbyshire. This led to an income of
£52,500, which was paid to the government. The council
said it was looking to recruit more parking attendants.
It is hoping to have a total force of around 25 wardens.
Maybe the reason for the huge rise in fines has something
to do with the fact that the council gets to keep the
revenue. (Source: BBC News, Aug/07)
Partem, a
company based in Cheltenham, Glos, has developed a system
of road sensors which will send a text message to a
traffic warden as soon as a car is parked illegally.
Current estimates suggest that the sensors could cost
around only £30 each. The system, known as Volis,
entails placing sensors 5ft apart on a road where parking
is subject to control. The sensors would receive a signal
from a satellite overhead, either the current GPS system
or the planned European equivalent known as Galileo. If a
car is parked above the sensor, the signal drops, but
does not disappear, and this triggers the sending of a
text message telling the warden where the offending car
is parked. Parking meters can use the same technology. As
soon as the clock has run down, a text is transmitted,
the GPS sensor tells the warden where the car is.
(Source: Daily Telegraph, May/06)
Local
councils are illegally using motorists as a cash cow by
flouting government guidelines and turning parking
control into a money-making business. While Whitehall
insists that local authorities should use their powers
only to improve traffic management, increasing numbers of
motorists are finding that councils see parking as a
multi-million-pound source of revenue. This is despite
the efforts of the parking industry to improve its image
while satisfying the demands of local authorities that
employ them.
An investigation by The Daily Telegraph has uncovered an
array of abuses. They include the issuing of thousands of
illegal parking tickets, many of which are quashed on
appeal. Some contractors have set "benchmarks"
for the number of penalty charge notices that each
attendant should issue on their shifts. On occasions
fines are increased substantially when collection is
handed over to debt enforcement agencies that obtain
county court judgments against motorists who are unaware
that any "hearing" has taken place. (Source: Daily Telegraph, Jan/06)
Steve Conn
asked officers how police could get away with parking on
double yellow lines in Normanton Road and was allegedly
told, "We can do what we like, because we're the
law". He first approached a nearby marked police
vehicle to ask why the unmarked van was there and claims
an officer dismissed him by saying - 'why don't you ask
them'. But when he walked up to the van, he said he was
met with an aggressive response.
Mr Conn is angry that Derbyshire police are suggesting
there is one rule for them regarding illegal parking and
another for the rest of the county. The van is part of
the ANPR unit and Inspector Louis Martin, who is in
charge of the unit, was sympathetic about Mr Conn's
complaint, but defended the use of the vans in the fight
against crime.
He said, "I strongly suggest that he makes an
official complaint to the Chief Constable about the
incivility and it will be investigated properly, but
these vans are a tool we have to catch criminals. There
is a lot of criminal activity like drug dealing on
Normanton Road and we cannot allow them to have free
range just because there are double yellow lines on the
road. Despite complaints, we are going to carry on."
In other words, tough!
Motorist
Dennis Ashmore spotted a police speed camera van, parked
yards from a junction on busy Heanor Road, Codnor, as it
was monitoring the speed of vehicles heading into the
village. Mr Ashmore said the police speed camera van,
which had the slogan "promoting safety" on its
side, was obstructing the flow of traffic by parking on a
bend.
He said it forced other road users to enter a hatched
area on the carriageway. According to rule 109 of the
Highway Code, drivers should only enter hatched areas
where they can see on-coming traffic and assess it is
safe to enter. But Mr Harrison said the position of the
police van would have prevented motorists from seeing
on-coming traffic.
The Highway Code also states that cars should not be
parked within 32ft (10m) of a junction, or on a bend in
the interest of safety (rule 217). The previous week Mr
Ashmore said he spotted the van parked on the other side
of the road, checking the speed of vehicles driving away
from Codnor.
Police spokeswoman Jill Walden denied the police were
guilty of doing anything wrong saying, "There was
nothing wrong with the way these police vehicles were
parked. If they were normal road users you would just go
around them. It is not illegal to enter a hatched area
without a solid outline. The police would not ask
motorists to move on if they were parked in a similar
position." Something for all motorists to remember.
For the past
50 years, residents living in Radbourne Lane, Mackworth,
have parked their cars on a grass verge which runs
between their homes and the road. During this time,
pathways from the verge, through a hedge and down a steep
slope to the houses have been made by residents walking
to and from their cars. According to householders, these
pathways, which are not legally public rights of way, are
also used every day by service people, delivery drivers
and dustmen as a direct route to some 20 homes. Recently
residents living on Radbourne Lane were sent a letter
informing them of proposed footway resurfacing works due
to take place. As the work started, many residents
inquired further about the work.
To their disgust they discovered that, while the work was
going on, Derby City Council was also to consider placing
wooden bollards along the verge to prevent vehicles
parking. A spokeswoman for the council said, "We're
not putting in bollards along the verge at the moment,
however we may have to. The reason for this is that it
has become an issue after an insurance claim was made
against us. People have been parking illegally along the
verge and over the years they have made an access route
through the hedge from the verge to the houses. But it's
not a public right of way. We have had an incident where
somebody has slipped and then claimed against us."
She added, "We're talking to residents as we
understand not all of them have drives to park on and,
with it being a 40mph road, they can't park on the road.
As a local authority we don't have to provide parking
spaces but we do have sympathy with them and we do want
to sort out a solution which will prevent people parking
on the verge." But residents are outraged by these
plans and have said they will fight them all the way. One
said, "People have always parked on this grass verge
but if we park on the road it will make it even more
dangerous. It's a fast road and a bus route and cars
parked will just make it worse." (Source: Derby Evening Telegraph)
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