Wednesday, 2 December 2009

The Parking Taliban


I have been much diverted during the second half of November so I have not had the chance to comment on current affairs. But there has been much nonsense and insanity that I have observed and in the next few days I will try to catch up.

First a simple story about a doctor and his 125cc "Liberty" scooter. This saga is Kafkaesque in its complexity and irrationality. We are indebted to the Daily Mail for providing the details of this extraordinary story. Look at the picture above of an almost sleepy street in London that appeared in that newspaper on Wednesday 2nd December. Two years ago, Dr Richard Dawood who has an office in Central London, collected a parking ticket on the scooter left in the position shown above. The good doctor travels to and from his appointments and his clinic around the congested streets and the congestion charging zone using that small petrol engined scooter. When he is in his office he parks the scooter as shown on the land owned by him - a strip of concrete in front of the office. It is included on the deeds of his property. As you can see, this land - about 1½m wide - stands alongside the pavement and the parking fascists of Camden Council have decided that as the strip of concrete is attached to the pavement without any dividing fence, it is part of that pavement and is, therefore, a public right of way. In these circumstances Doctor Dawood cannot park there and he has received a whole box full of parking tickets. He has telephoned the council offices, written to them and generally complained without any success and he decided to go to court. Solicitors were advised and barristers were briefed but as they prepared to go into the court, Camden Council cancelled the tickets. This happened repeatedly and so he went with his barrister to a parking tribunal - I didn't even know that such existed. The adjudicator, quite overcome by the principles involved, reserved his judgement. But later he gave his decision based on a previous case and the definition of an "urban road" and decided in the council's favour. It seems that the case of White vs the City of Westminster Council has been dredged up for all cases of this type. Dr Dawood tried to get a judicial review but his request was rejected by the Court of Appeal. This bizarre consideration by Lord Justice Sedley explained that while Dr Dawood undoubtedly owned the land, this referred to the sub-soil. The concrete or tarmac surface above was subject to public access and since there was no physical barrier - a fence - parking restrictions did apply. A key factor seemed to be the definition of a road. The council takes full rights over this area outside the doctor's office but, since it is not their land, quite reasonably, it does not have to maintain it.
The logic - in so far as this piece of nonsense has any logic at all - leads to the conclusion that any vehicle parked on a piece of land attached to the road and that is not separated by a fence can be subject to parking restrictions - and this includes your own driveway outside your house. No doubt, in the fullness of time, we will read of some individual being pursued through the courts for parking illegally on his own drive.
Dr Dawood has realised that of course the local council in the Borough of Camden is not concerned by protecting the public from the tribulations of reckless parking so much as collecting as much money as possible to waste on any politically correct yet madcap scheme that their bureaucratic brains can devise.
In the insane world of New Labour anything can become possible.
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