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Signs of nasty times
• ISLINGTON Council preys and capitalises on drivers who have paid for a residents’ parking permit but who, out of genuine error, park in a business bay because it is insufficiently distinguished from a residents’ parking bay.
I inadvertently parked in one such bay along Barnsbury Park on January 8. It was foggy and I could see that a traffic warden was issuing a ticket to another vehicle. There was an empty space next to where he stood so I slipped my car in. I looked at the sign on the kerb beforehand and saw that it was a dual-purpose bay, for permit holders and pay-as-you-park.
In my haste, I failed to realise residents’ and business signs look almost identical, except of course for the spelling of the word in question. The letter size, font and colour are the same for both.
Barnsbury Park is slap bang in the middle of a residential area, bordered on both sides by rows of houses. I foolishly thought that a dual-purpose sign in such an area would indicate parking for residents’ permit holders and those paying for timed parking. The foggy conditions clearly affected the traffic warden’s eyesight too, as he wrongly noted the colour of my car on the ticket I received.
I am sure this is not the first time an Islington resident has fallen foul of this set-up. The council could easily render the word “business” in a different colour to distinguish it from the other form of parking bay. It has chosen not to as this income stream is far too lucrative to jeopardise.
The council is disingenuous, to say the least, regardless of its excuses. Road humps that are too high and too many, overzealous wardens and the use of poorly-discriminatory signage to dupe residents consistently characterise the type of people employed to regulate parking.
FC
N1 (Name and address supplied)
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