Brockley Cross Crisis Point: The Council Responds

A couple of weeks ago, Brockley Central was hit by a dose of what we like to think was swine flu, but was more likely simple man flu. For a couple of days, we were largely house bound, only occasionally leaving home to replenish our stocks of juice, DVDs and medicine. This incarceration brought about a touch of Rear Window-style paranoia, which led to us photgraphing horrific crimes against parking in Brockley Cross.

We published these photos over four days and pointed them out to the Council, asking whether they planned to do anything about the regular, flagrant and dangerous parking abuses that were afflicting the area. They kindly agreed to provide a response.

It's worth stressing before we get to the response that what we absolutely were not asking about was whether new parking controls could be introduced. Instead, what we wanted to know was whether the existing ones could be properly enforced. After all, you don't need special rules to stop cars parking on the pavement. Here's what we wrote on day one:

"It should not require new legislation, restrictions, studies, consultations, funding or any of the other usual reasons why things don't happen. Fixing the problem could even be revenue-generating.

"What we need is traffic wardens. Ruthless, efficient traffic wardens, incentivised to punish transgressors. Traffic wardens who circle Brockley Cross like jackals. A few weeks of this treatment should sort the problem out. It could be done tomorrow, if the will was there."

So with that in mind, the third paragraph in the response from the Council published below is really the only one that matters - and whilst it's encouraging that they have confirmed they will take action to enforce the rules in Brockley Cross, it would be nice to know what this means in practice. We've asked whether they can provide any more details. The first two paragraphs are interesting for those wondering whether a CPZ is on the cards for the area (answer: no). Here is their response:

"We have no current plans to look at parking controls in the Brockley Cross area. We have not received any complaints about parking pressures in the roads around Brockley Cross. Early in 2005 the Council carried out a widespread parking consultation. The purpose of this consultation was to identify areas of the borough where there were pressures on parking and where residents supported the development of parking controls. The consultation included the Brockley Cross area. There was no majority support for further consultation on controlled parking in your area at that time and therefore no consultation was planned.

"However I have passed your concerns to the Parking Implementation Manager who maintains a database of concerns expressed on parking issues and this is used to inform future work programmes. We would only consider introducing parking controls over an area around a parking attractor - a station / shops/ college and such a scheme would only be implemented following extensive public consultation. It is likely that any plans to consult on parking controls would require the approval of Mayor and Cabinet.

"In the meantime I have asked out parking team to enforce against any parking offences that are taking place in the areas you describe."