| Topic: | Re:Pick up and Drop Off Chaos at Ealing Broadway Station | |
| Posted by: | Phil Taylor | |
| Date/Time: | 19/02/10 20:32:00 |
| If I may impart some actual information. It is perfectly legal and clearly described in the Highway Code that you may pick up and drop off (where it is safe) on any single or double yellow line irrespective of whether there is a loading restriction. If you stop for any reason on a bus stop you will be liable for a ticket. If you stop for any reason on a pedestrian crossing or zig-zags you will be liable for a ticket. Quite reasonably I think, the transport planners have prioritised pedestrian and public transport access on the public highway at the station. There is limited room unfortunately to give good facilities for every mode of transport. The station forecourt is private property and we live in a country where property rights are respected and not arbitrarily infringed. I drop off and pick up my wife regularly on the double yellows on the station forecourt. Lots of people do and it is fine. If you stray on to the very prominently signed private bays you may well pick up a clamp or a ticket from the private enforcement company Park Direct. No-one is very happy with Park Direct apart from the owners of the parking spaces who ask them to enforce their spaces so that they can use them. I myself have talked to Park Direct, as have our trading standards people and the local Safer Neighbourhood Team. Their postal penalty charges can be safely ignored as they are unenforceable. You can take them to the small claims court to get them to repay clamping charges. Probably best not to use someone else's parking space in the first place though. The Council is working to persuade the various property owners concerned to sort this problem out but it is not our property and we have no tools to force a solution. Maybe in Eric's ideal world the state would just take the property for the public good. Maybe in that world the state would take Eric's house next. |