I’ve been talking to the council Parks department about this for a while now and (as they maintain the grass verges). And in February I asked Parks to cost up for the installation of a wooden knee hight fence along this stretch to prevent vehicles being able to drive onto the grass verges. They came back with a cost and I quickly found the funds to have them fitted. However, advice came back to say this was not permissable, to quote.

“Timber knee rail fencing should not be used on the highway. Not only does it introduce a trip hazard to pedestrians who try to step over it, it is not passively safe. If hit at speenby a motorist, the timber can spear through a vehicle resulting in fire and serious injury to the driver. This happened some years ago on Counthill Road.”

So on the 27th March I had a meeting with two senior Highways officers to discuss what we can do here. They both agreed that we need to do something but we really ought to tackle the whole issue of illegal and anti-social parking on this stretch of road. We discussed a number of measures and Highways are now looking at various measures we can put in place, physically ie metal railings/fencing and those that will give us real legal powers to prosecute offenders. For one example, we cannot use the camera car other than on the crossing and zigzag lines, but it may be possible to extend the zigzags futher up the road on both sides allowing wardens to use the camera car. To this end the funds I found for the railings have been put towards this work and I’ll be having further meetings to discuss and agree with a view to having all in place during this summer.

In 2014, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, Eric Pickles banned the use of CCTV cars to enforec on street parking. He said the move would protect drivers from ‘greedy’ councils and reign in ‘over-zealous’ parking enforcement 

The Local Government Association has consistently warned a ban on CCTV parking cameras could endanger children by making it ‘impossible’ to tackle dangerous parking outside of schools.

I’ve spoken to Highways officer this morning, 17/04/2024 for an update and have been told they are starting to work on the project from this week. I’ll keep posting updates here as I get them.