I was interested to read Linda Piper's article in last week's News Shopper, as I have been in communication with Bexley Council on the same subject.

My two points were:

Obstruction - if someone has thoughtlessly prevented you from driving out of your own property, seeing a traffic warden slap a ticket on their windscreen doesn't solve the problem. My suggestion to Bexley Council was that they create a car-pound and have the offending vehicles removed and taken there.

Without going into fine detail, their response can be summed up as "can't afford it". This seems a weak reason, since I'm sure there are responsible, private companies who would be keen to administer such a scheme and rake in the profits.

Permission for wardens to ticket offending vehicles (by registration of address) - surely a database created to register residents who are happy for any vehicle parked across their access to be ticketed, could be extended to issue a uniquely numbered parking permit for each household. This could be displayed by the householder or a visitor and could be checked against the database by wardens. A modest charge per annum for this facility would not be unreasonable.

Bexley Council ignored this suggestion.

I can only imagine that the 400 residents who have already registered have adequate parking for themselves and any visitors. In my area virtually all the front gardens have been paved over to accommodate one car and a second, belonging to the household, is parked across the ramp.

No-one in their right mind is going to register for a scheme that leaves them or their visitors liable for parking fines and this leaves very little for the council to do.

As I said in my email to the parking services department, this whole scheme seems like a neat way of the council "washing their hands" of the problem.

So what's left for the householder to do, if some "inconsiderate" individual blocks them in? The police aren't interested and the council aren't either.

Answers on a postcard ...

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