It's all the rage...

After road rage, pub rage, air rage, trolley rage, cycle rage and keyboard rage, a new strain of this awful modern phenomenon has surfaced in Covent Garden: respark rage.

Any Covent Garden resident wishing to keep a motor vehicle in an on-street parking bay can apply to Camden Council or Westminster City Council for a resident parking permit. Once obtained, this highly sought-after piece of paper allows the fortunate resident to park - as long as a bay is available, that is. However, having parked in a resident bay, is sometimes the beginning of the real problem, as the article by a Covent Garden resident below shows...

"I only use my vehicle when I can be fairly sure of obtaining a space. This is massively inconvenient and it is outrageous that one should have to plan one's life around 15 sq. m. of tarmac! A part-time job I have taken could only be considered because the unsociable hours the job entails means a parking space will be likely upon my return. I would be green and use public transport or car share, were it not for the fact I have so much to carry to work (and a dog!), which makes that option logistically impossible. The shifts are expected to change this year, whereupon I will be forced to give the job up. With the proposed new hours, I won't find a space when I return home - and after a 12-hour shift and two hour's driving there's no way I can spend time waiting in my car for one to happen (fat chance!)."

"I have not yet had tickets as a result of respark bays having been suspended (unlike a number of other residents). I check the bay for impending suspension on a daily basis and take appropriate action. Of course if I didn't do that, was sick or was on holiday, I'd be able to paper my walls with tickets by now. As parking restrictions have created the most lucrative and parasitic industry on earth, I do feel that they could afford to issue bay suspension warnings by post - but that would show that they really care about the people who pay their wages, and that would never do."

"I have twice been given a ticket in error. The first time was due to a badly marked bay in Great Queen Street. I made numerous representations to the Council, obtained the names of witnesses, interviewed wardens and police officers at the roadside, made phone calls, took photographs, spent hours and hours and hours on it - and was taken to Court. I walked the streets at night because I couldn't sleep, planned knee-cappings and revenge killings, searched the Internet for How To Firebomb Your Town Hall (but Lycos doesn't have any info on that) and generally ran myself to the brink of illness with the frustration and stress of it all. The final irony was, when I attended the Court hearing, complete with independent witness and several kilos of documentary evidence (not to mention the machete up my sleeve), the buggers didn't even turn up! The well-paid Suit went through his obligatory routine at a rate of knots (it still lasted about 3 minutes) and finished with the sentence: "Having said all that, which I am obliged to do by law, you've won. The Council haven't made an appearance. " He then stuck another £100 on the Ratepayers' bill and smiled as he waved me goodbye. Can you imagine how I felt? I have since discovered that, if a ticket gets paid by the punter, Camden get their money. If the case goes to Court and the Council win, Camden get their money. If the case goes to Court and the Council lose, Camden get their money. They are indemnified by the agreement they have with the contractors against loss for tickets issued in error. Not bad work if you can get it, eh? I bet the jolly guys and gals at the Council have lost count of the number of cars and houses they own. Well, the money has to go somewhere: it sure doesn't go on us!"

[Pause for breath]

"The second time rendered me almost speechless, you'll be pleased to hear. Sorry, the word was almost. In a different bay in Great Queen Street I hadn't moved my van for weeks, for reasons stated, and was at all times displaying an up-to-date permit, yet still managed to attract the dreaded ticket. I wrote to the Council protesting again, enclosing photocopies of contiguous permits dating from well before the alleged offence to well after it, showing that I had been in parking "credit" for the whole relevant period. I also made many constructive suggestions as to how the parking situation could be improved and clearer for everyone, residents and inadvertent abusers alike. The reply I received was no surprise in that it was totally negative from the first word to the last and so was obviously written by a fully-qualified Council Officer. The suggestions I had made, which had impressed Cllr Nirmal Roy enough to write to me on the subject incidentally, were dismissed out of hand as impractical and in one or two cases not based on fact.

It was quite clear that the man who wrote to me had absolutely no idea whatsoever of what parking is really like here. His level of ignorance of the situation persuaded me that I was obviously dealing with a top man and so I never bothered to follow it up further with him. This is, of course, how the cats get their cream. More to the point, he stood solidly behind his efficient peak-hatted operative and all but suggested I was lying about my case. If I had been, the only possible scenario that would have fitted those facts was that I had crept, presumably under cover of darkness, to my vehicle, removed my parking permit, faded silently into the night, and only returned to replace the permit when I was absolutely sure I had received a parking ticket to contest. Perhaps you get a mental picture of my reaction? If you have a problem with that, conjure up a vision of Mount Vesuvius in its prime, making it with Hurricane George.

Another irate letter, more hours out of my life, more hairs from my head, found sympathy and succour in the guise of Cllr. Roy who promised to do what he could. He was as good as his word and I subsequently received a grudging letter from this Council moron who, in a nutshell, said they would "let me off on this occasion"! So, I'm still guilty but because of a bit of string-pulling they've had to do me a favour. Now I was speechless - you'll be delighted to hear."

"I can't make libellous direct accusations but, in my heart of hearts, I know that the guys with the power have this parking thing sewn up tight and there's nothing anyone can do to change things. There's just too much money and too many back pockets, allegedly. That's life; we're just filling in the sandwich. If YOU have experienced similar problems and are going to take the matter up with a Council official, if it's the guy that wrote to me (can't remember his name) you'll need to tailor your expectations accordingly!"

"Another sad observation: many of the bogus residents are either company bosses who give local employees a bit of bunce for using their name and address. Or they stick a bed and an armchair in a windowless box-room and claim residency. Very wrong. Very naughty. But without them there would be less fluidity even than there is now in the few spaces that are laughingly called 'parking provision for residents'. It's only when they bugger off back to the burbs and shires that the likes of me gets a look-in."

"A final, and equally sad, observation: residential parking provision could be substantially extended (if the 'system' has to perpetuate at all): there are abundant empty meter spaces all day in Lincoln's Inn Fields - a fact refuted by the Council. Now why is that? Could it be anything to do with the massively rich legal profession being centred there, paying huge amounts of business tax to said Council and needing guaranteed parking for their equally massively rich clients? Surely not. Why do I think these things?"

'The Respark Rager'
(name and address supplied)

Some statistics:
• since Camden Council took over parking control from the Police in December 1993, more than one million parking tickets have been slapped on cars in Camden and 75,000 cars have been clamped!
• in Camden's CA-C controlled parking zone (Covent Garden and part of Bloomsbury) there are 220 respark bays to share between approximately 400 permit holders.

Contacts:

Camden Parking Solutions - tel 0171-681 4646 (24 hrs/day)
http://www.camden.gov.uk/
London Borough of Camden
Parking Solutions
Representations/Correspondence
PO Box 20218
London NW1 1WP

Westminster Parktel - tel 0171-823 4567 (24 hrs/day)
(for ResPark enquiries: tel 0171 641 5123/5129)
http://www.westminster.gov.uk/corporate/services/content/parktel.htm

Parking Committee for London:
Transport Committee For London
See also the parking appeals service.

If you would like to email the people responsible for Camden's parking 'solutions' send your email to: jo.mckelvey@environment.camden.gov.uk and ask for a response. Please copy the CGCA in on any response you receive - thank you!