| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:Grove Park CPZ again | |
| Posted by: | Dan Murphy | |
| Date/Time: | 05/09/15 07:12:00 |
| "...He cannot be blind to what is happening to the streets immediately around where he lives..." Of course he isn't. Everyone who lives in GP is aware of the parking problems we have, and the fact that non-residents park here. It would be pretty hard to miss it. Andy is making a totally different point. You (and others) may feel that the only possible solution is an area wide CPZ. Without doubt, there are a number of people in GP who hold this view (the minority of residents in Park & Staveley Roads, and a number of residents in Elmwood, and others). But we also know that the vast majority of residents in the area do not want a CPZ, at least when they were last asked. Hounslow Council's position in all of this has been iniquitous from the start. As with wheelie bins, they decided that we would be getting a CPZ,no matter what residents said. 1. The car park in Chiswick House would cause "massive" displacement into neighbouring roads, and so a CPZ is the only sensible solution (there was never any displacement from that car park, because there were never any commuters parking there - which everyone, including the council knew from the start). 2. The CPZ in Park & Staveley Roads will only cause "minimal" displacement into neighbouring roads, so this is not a valid objection to the 2-road CPZ. See what they've done here? Over here the "displacement is inevitable" and "massive", but over here it will only be "minimal" if at all. 3. And now they are doing exactly what wee always said they would, using a road by road approach to gradually extend the CPZ across the entire GP area. And in each road, they say "and if the roads neighbouring you ask for a CPZ, with the "inevitable" displacement this will cause, would you want a CPZ then?" So now the displacement is "inevitable" again. It's not the fact that we have parking problems, we all know that anyway (well, ironically the only GP residents who don't, and who never had parking problems are the residents in Park Road, the vast majority of whom continue to park their cars in their driveways, as they always did!!) LBH lied to us consistently about the CPZ. They lied about the traffic research into possible displacement from the Car Park. They ignored consultation results, and manipulated the numbers to ignore everyone who said they "didn't have a problem" with parking. They failed to address the 400+ objections to the CPZ, which they promised to do. And when they started the process of extending the CPZ into other GP roads, their attempts to bullldoze through the process set out by our Area Forum meant that their first attempt had to be scrapped as it was so biased and misleading. (Who pays for that?) So the Council will succeed with getting a CPZ into all of GP, regardless of what the majority of residents say. They will lie, they will ignore due process, they will issue misleading consultation results, and they will issue consultation letters with highly misleading and biased questions, as Andy has pointed out above. For myself, my experience trying to get the Council and Traffic department to address residents' concerns, or even to tell us the truth, was extremely depressing. I have learned that it is a total waste of time, and that the council will put a CPZ into GP regardless of any due process. That's what makes people like Andy and me annoyed. Not the parking problems, or that we have some other magic solution. Of course we don't. We just wish our council would not lie to us, and continually bypass the system when they want to do something that is against the wishes of the majority of residents. It's just depressing. So no, I won't be actively opposing this extension of the CPZ, and I won't be speaking to anyone at the council about it. Because I know they will do what they want regardless of anything I, or any other residents, have to say about it. |