| Topic: | Re:One very powerful point about Elmwood Road | |
| Posted by: | Mark Proctor | |
| Date/Time: | 27/01/11 02:21:00 |
| "One guy said something very important which no-one else picked up on. He said that Elmwood Road was more crowded at night than during the day. If that is true (and I think he's right) then the CPZ might have a positive impact during the day when finding a space is less of a problem, but a negative impact when it matters - at night. Why? Because a similar number of cars as now will be trying to fit into a smaller number of parking spaces. Oh the irony - Elmwood's situation made even worse" That was me :) I walk down the road each day to walk my dogs. I found in general during the day the road had between 5 and 13 spaces. As a finger in the air medium, I'd say it was coming in around 7 or 8. During the night, approx 7pm, that could go down to more like 2 or 3 spaces. The church area and the opposite end of the road clearly have an important role to play in overspill. At night time I would say that Elmwood Road definitely has parking problems, especially around 7pm, and several people occasionally probably end up parking on near by roads. I work from home and use my car during the day to potter around and I have never once been unable to park on my road during the daytime. Now considering I'm on Sutton Lane South, end of Elmwood Road, I don't think they would have far to go. On the very rare time that SLS did get full then Gordon Road has a lot of over spill too. I've probably not parked on my road less than 10 times in the last year and each time was in the evenings, quite often when there was a church event happening. It's something I'm more than happy to tolerate for such a wonderful local building and facility. During those occasions I was always able to get parking on Gordon Road. Personally I take this as part and parcel of living in London and love the more quaint villagey feel we have in Grove Park; that is increasingly become unique in London. Which is why it's promoted as a desirable feature by estate agents when selling properties in the area. You'll notice no one has ever said, I went home and couldn't get parking and had to drive all night. Or that they had to park as far away as Thames Road. They only argue that parking can be hard on their road. This is clearly a fact based on the response of people requesting CPZ in other roads. The councils basic argument has been that it's not fair for one minority group to suffer, as such they need to consider implementing a scheme that is fair to all. I summarise that from their ill founded "mob rule" comment. For them to put forward an argument it must be framed within proper parameters. Asking people's opinions on whether they want a CPZ or not and then ignoring the larger majority is a recipe for perceived unfairness; as you are pitting one opinion against another and playing favourites. Without such parameters the council cannot undertake such an effort in good faith and that majority have every right to feel aggrieved. At a minimum these can be framed as: Does the council have a duty to ensure parking is on the same road as the resident's house, if the road is long then within line of sight of that house. Or does the council have duty to ensure convenient parking. If it's the former the council can make a more solid argument for CPZ on Elmwood road. If Elmwood road becomes CPZ then due to displacement arguments can be made for other roads. If it's the later the council has to determine firstly what is considered convenient. This is the distance from the persons parked car to their home. Then it has to be determined if that distance is inconvenient what scale can be used to measure the degree of inconvenience. You will also need to combine that inconvenience with how often that inconvenience is likely to occur. The decision for or against a CPZ is then comparison of that degree of inconvenience to those that would have to suffer an unneeded CPZ. If you can show that a small minority, say even 1%, of people on Elmwood Road are having to park further away than for example Gordon road on regular occasions (again regular needs to be quantified) then you can have a more solid foundation for your argument against mob role. On the issue of hazards, which clearly is within the council's duty of care. It should consider all solutions and implement the lesser of the evils. In the case of the lady's argument of people zipping down Elmwood Road to avoid getting caught and having to reverse back up, while a one way system is not without it's issues it is the lesser of evils when compared with CPZ. Mark |