21/4/2008

Local News in Fleet

Parking bay row unsolved

The row over parking restrictions in Fleet town centre continues after claims the bays have been wrongly re-painted.

Hampshire County Council has moved to solve the long-running problem by re-painting all the parking bays along Fleet Road after a national adjudication ruled they could not be enforced.

But Peter Ashford, who has worked tirelessly for 18 months to have the parking signs reviewed, says the parking places continue to be illegally marked.

He has found that seven of the ten disabled parking places are significantly shorter than the prescribed minimum length and three pairs of parking places provided for disabled badge drivers are illegally marked.

Mr Ashford said a disabled bay at Boots, for example, has been marked as an individual parking space, which is not permissible.

The bay is also not long enough and is incorporated in a long hybrid bay, which is also not allowed. The transverse marking at both the left and right ends are wrong and the writing on the road is not positioned correctly.

Mr Ashford has found a total of 37 defects in the Fleet Road parking places. He said: “None of the parking bay re-marking has been done correctly so every one remains contrary to regulations.”

Mr Ashford has reported his findings to Hart District Council chief executive Geoff Bonner and other officers setting out in full detail what the regulations require and what is wrong with the parking bays now.

Mr Ashford said: “Traffic signs regulations are easy to understand and all that is needed is to follow a simple diagram. An intelligent school leaver could get it right but obviously not Hampshire County Council.”

Stephen Robson, a former Hook resident, successfully appealed against a parking ticket — which he received in Fleet Road in January 2007 —  last month.

Mr Ashford said he presented a clear diagram at the appeal by Mr Robson, which the adjudicator agreed was exactly how the parking bays must be marked, but pointed out that there is not a single parking bay in Fleet Road that resembles it.

He said: “Several parking bays actually have six different errors that can be spotted at a glance, each one making it illegally marked.

“I provided Hart District Council with detailed evidence that proved parking enforcement was not lawfully possible in Fleet Road last November and again in January but it was ignored both times until Mr Robson’s appeal adjudicator agreed with what I had been telling the council for months.”

As a result of the adjudication there has been no parking enforcement along Fleet Road for the last month.

After enforcement stopped Hampshire County Council claimed that the parking signs were legal and in accordance with the adjudicator’s decision.

But Mr Ashford branded this as “ridiculous nonsense”.

He added: “The traffic signs regulations prohibit the display of any parking notice except in conjunction with road markings that are correct as specified. All of the parking notices should have been removed months ago and they should be removed now.

“It is depressing that in the last month Hampshire County Council has done nothing to correct the unsatisfactory parking notices themselves that both councils know are confusing, contradictory, and amount to entrapment of unfortunate drivers.

“In the last two years the present signs have failed to achieve the requirements of the Fleet Road parking restrictions and they never will.

“None of the parking places has been marked according to regulations for the last two years and they are still illegally marked after the recent pathetic repainting work by Hampshire County Council.”

Mr Ashford is now calling on Hart to refund all the parking penalty payments it has received from more than 6,000 drivers.

David Simpson, Hart District Council’s cabinet member for transport, said its hands were tied over the issue.

He added: “We have to follow the legal advice we receive from Hampshire County Council — we have no choice in the matter.

“The county is adamant they are right and still believe that the adjudication is wrong.

“We can’t take legal advice from a potential 85,000 residents.”

Cllr Simpson said he would personally like the matter to go to the High Court.

He added: “I would like a legal opinion which is clear cut because at the moment we are literally piggy in the middle.”

A Hampshire County Council spokesman said: “We would not accept Mr Ashford’s view that the restrictions on Fleet Road are flawed and not enforceable. While we are still taking legal advice on the adjudicator’s decision, we have acted on it and re-marked the bays in strict accordance with the traffic order and the regulations.

“There are still some minor amendments to complete and those will be done as soon as possible.

“We believe Mr Ashford is wrong in his interpretation of the regulations and the meaning of the signs, particularly since the combination of signs used has been agreed by the Department for Transport and specially authorised.”

First printed in: Fleet News and Mail