“I strongly urge you to desist from actions which damage the West End economy”, how sweet, Danny!
In March 2009, Westminster Tory councillor Danny Chalkley addressed an open letter to Warren Djanogly, Chairman of the No To Bike Parking Tax campaign, to ask him to cancel the protest ride that took place on 31st March 2009, which was attended by more than 5,000 motorcyclists and their supporters. This particular demonstration was the largest ever seen by Westminster City Council, according to the response to a Freedom of Information request from the Metropolitan Police. Below is an extract from Chalkley’s letter to Warren Djanogly:-
“I strongly urge you to desist from actions which damage the West End economy. Your recent protest hindered hard pressed retailers and caused delay and inconvenience on many transport routes. These are not the actions of a responsible group. I call on you to cancel your protest ride on 31st March, which will inevitably delay Londoners seeking to go about their business, many on their journey home” (click here to view the full letter).
Less than a year later, the same Tory Councillor Danny Chalkley announces his proposal to extend parking control hours in the West End from 6.30pm to midnight, Monday to Saturday. But this proposal, in Chalkley’s mind, doesn’t have any impact at all on “Londoners seeking to go about their business”, nor will it affect “many on their journey home”, does it? Of course not, come on, since Chalkley has given himself the benefit of a free Westminster wide parking permit, so why would he care about thousands of Londoners going out in the West End in the evening and having to pay up to £25 extra in parking charges?
Well, last week, The Stage announced that Chalkley’s ludicrous proposal could cost West End theatres up to £70 million in lost ticket sales, but of course, this doesn’t damage the West End economy at all, because what counts for Chalkley is that he gets £7 million additional income in the pocket to help with Westminster Council’s massive £22 million budget overspend resulting from the Tories’ inability to manage the finances of the wealthiest council in the United Kingdom.
According to The Stage, Nica Burns, SOLT president and chief executive of Nimax Theatres, said that it was very unlikely that those currently going to the theatre by car would switch to public transport, so they will most likely be put off going to the theatre all together, resulting in massive losses and potential redundancies in the theatre industry. This is obviously not surprising as, according to The Stage, 16% of theatregoers use their cars and 90% of ticket revenue is generated within Westminster, hence a loss of more than £70 million would be made should Chalkley’s selfish proposals went ahead. Not to mention of course the thousands of motorcyclists who have already been put off Westminster because of Chalkley’s bike parking tax, for which he has totally - and delibarately – ignored more than 3,000 objections, simply because he is obsessed with revenue raising to cope with the £15 million worth of taxpayers’ money he lost in a failed CCTV system last year.
So we think that Westminster Councillor Danny Chalkley should be the last person to give lessons on what activities do or don’t damage the West End economy, because whatever he does or decides to do, seems to piss off everyone at the moment. According to the West End Extra, he’s become a “hate figure”!
Further reading (click to view):-
Please join and support the campaign to stop Westminster Council from stealth taxing motorcyclists to park before their scheme spreads all over the UK and the rest of Europe. For further details, visit http://www.notobikeparkingtax.com/
Rejoignez le groupe de manifestants contre le stationnement payant des motocyclistes a Westminster avant que cela ne se propage dans le reste du Royaume-Uni et l’Union Europeenne. Pour plus d’informations, consultez http://www.notobikeparkingtax.com/
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Westminster Conservative Councillors will be having their annual dinner party on 9th March 2010 at the magnificent five-star Northumberland Hotel in Trafalgar Square, Central London, at a total cost of £23,000.
£23,000 worth of taxpayers’ money spent in an event during which these Tory Councillors will celebrate their success over the past year, including:-
- £15 million lost by Councillor Danny Chalkley in a failed CCTV system that didn’t meet the department for Transport (DfT) regulations due to lack of prior consultation
- £17 million worth of taxpayers’ money put at risk by the Tory decision to invest in now-failed Icelandic Bank Landisbanki, despite the Council’s Treasury Management (Sector) advice on 13th May 2008 that credit ratings agency Fitch had assigned a negative outlook to Landisbanki in terms of its long term A rating
- £675,000 spent in a parking scheme (Partnerships in Parking), designed to harmonise parking regulations across London, and now under investigation by the European Commission and Office of Fair Trading for potential breach of European and UK law
- £22 million budget overspend in the past financial year, which has lead to 300 redundancies in 2009 and a further 60 to come shortly
But of course, with Conservative Danny Chalkley, who has pressed ahead with making his controversial motorcycle parking tax permanent, which generates over £2 million worth of income per annum, and his ludicrous proposals to extend parking control hours from 6.30pm to midnight to generate a further £7 million of income for Westminster Council together with a loss of £70 million for the West-End theatres, Westminster Tory Councillors feel the need to celebrate, at the expense of taxpayers, their great failures and how unpopular they have become.
Westminster Conservative Councillors don’t seem to have an issue with hundreds of redundancies taking place in their own council, due to their incompetence and complete lack of business sense. Chalkley’s recent proposal to extend parking control hours is expected to cause hundreds of redundancies in the theatre industry, and despite this, he will most likely show off and behave like a clown at the forthcoming Westminster Council’s annual dinner party.
The cost of this party, £23,000, could well be the annual salary of a council employee, but instead of keeping that person at work, those Tory Councillors prefer to enjoy themselves in a top London venue.
This Tory dinner party is to contrast with the decision made by the top management of major banks and other organisations to cancel their Christmas parties to cope with the financial crisis but, as usual, Westminster Tories are not considering other people’s opinion and go ahead with their own schedule, no matter how detremental it could be for the public.
It is time that these Tory Councillors in Westminster are voted out of office at the May 2010 local elections, they are simply ruining the finances of a major council and causing misery to thousands of employees, residents, commuters and visitors. And this is what they will be celebrating on 9th March, that is their great ability and desire to put themselves first.
Further reading (click to view):-
Please join and support the campaign to stop Westminster Council from stealth taxing motorcyclists to park before their scheme spreads all over the UK and the rest of Europe. For further details, visit http://www.notobikeparkingtax.com/
Rejoignez le groupe de manifestants contre le stationnement payant des motocyclistes a Westminster avant que cela ne se propage dans le reste du Royaume-Uni et l’Union Europeenne. Pour plus d’informations, consultez http://www.notobikeparkingtax.com/
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Central London was today the scene of another spectacular demonstration against the stealth tax introduced by Conservative lead Westminster City Council on motorcycle parking. A tax that has absolutely no justification whatsoever other than that of making its architects (Councillor Danny Chalkley, Kevin Goad and Alastair Gilchrist) wealthier and more arrogant than they already are.
Prior to the event, hundreds of bikers registered on the No To Bike Parking Tax campaign website to be notified by SMS or email of the meeting point thirty minutes before the start of the demonstration. The same hundreds of motorcyclists all gathered in Trafalgar Square at 1pm in a carnaval atmosphere, making an incredible amount of noise with their horns and causing an enormous traffic jam all over the square and its surroundings. As we approached Trafalgar Square, we were delighted to see a very good turn out, which showed how angry bikers are at a group of Westminster Conservatives for having imposed on them, without proper consultation and justification, a punishing stealth tax to purely fill up their pockets.
We were amused by the idea of receiving an SMS to advise the demonstration’s meeting point, when Westminster Council’s charging method for parking is precisely by SMS, via their pay by phone Canadian based supplier, Verrus. Unlike the crappy Verrus system, which keeps breaking down all the time and leaving its users in distress in the pouring rain or freezing temperatures, the operator used by the No To Bike Parking Tax campaign to send all these SMS messages was absolutely first class. Everyone received their SMS as scheduled, which caused no delays, stress and irritation. What a nice change compared with this horrible Verrus system, which is everything but user friendly and reliable!
At 1.20pm, protestors left Traflagar Square for Millbank to gather outside the Tory Headquaters to ask David Cameron, Leader of the Conservative Party, one simple question (which has yet to be answered): why should motorcyclists vote Tory at the forthcoming general elections? Eh, why, tell us why, we are all dying to know what benefits we, as motorcyclists, will get from a Tory Government. David Cameron has many times avised the UK population that, if elected, his party will not introduce stealth taxes and will also scrap unnecessary stealth taxes. But he seems to have no issues with letting his “local boys” in Conservative lead councils, such as Westminster, introduce a stealth tax on motorcycle parking, when bikes are the golden transport solution to relieve congestion, reduce pollution and offer a cheaper mode of transport for those in a less comfortable financial position. David Cameron, while saying that he is against stealth taxes, has done absolutely NOTHING whatsoever for this ridiculous motorcycle parking tax in Westminster to be scrapped, despite the thousands of objections that Westminster Council received during the experimental period. Cameron, and the Tory Grandees in general, have not moved their arse one single time to put pressure on a council managed by members of their own party to ask them to scrap a highly unpopular stealth tax, which brings in millions of pounds per annum, at a time when a large proportion of UK citizens are struggling to keep their job and feed their families.
Why so much hypocrisy, Mr Cameron? Why do you keep saying that your political party is against stealth taxes when we have here a perfect example that suggests otherwise? Why should we be tempted to vote Conservative at the fast approaching general elections, when the opinion and objections of thousands of UK citizens have been totally ignored by your local representatives?
Anyway, the fight against the motorcycle parking tax imposed by a bunch of hypocrit Conservative bureaucrats continues!
Please join and support the campaign to stop Westminster Council from stealth taxing motorcyclists to park before their scheme spreads all over the UK and the rest of Europe. For further details, visit http://www.notobikeparkingtax.com/
Rejoignez le groupe de manifestants contre le stationnement payant des motocyclistes a Westminster avant que cela ne se propage dans le reste du Royaume-Uni et l’Union Europeenne. Pour plus d’informations, consultez http://www.notobikeparkingtax.com/
If you have a story you would like to see published on UK France Bikers.com, please contact us here.
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We have today been made aware of the installation of brand new security devices in some motorcycle parking bays in the Central London Borough of Camden. At first, we were pleasantly surprised by this piece of news, thinking that at least one council in Central London was recognising the many benefits that motorcycles can offer to a congested and polluted city, by providing security devices for free in their parking bays.
When we subsequently realised what these security devices looked like (above right), we were just horrified. Yes, horrified, and the term is very weak. Let us explain.
The Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea (RBKC) introduced a couple of years ago a parking charge for their residents, justified by the provision of dedicated bays equipped with exactly the same security devices as the ones recently installed in Camden. Those security devices were (and still are) solely used as an excuse to charge their resident motorcyclists for parking, in a view to filling up the council’s coffers. So, can we assume that Camden are making plans to stealth tax motorcyclists for parking with their newly installed security devices?
Empty residents' bay equipped with ground anchors in the RBKC
Anyway, that’s not it. Take up of these ground anchors in the RBKC has been extremely low if not totally inexistent, which suggests that this type of security device is not popular at all with motorcyclists, to say the least. Of course they’re not popular because you’ve got to lift up a dirty handle at ground level, covered in dust, rain water, ice, and so on, with your hands, which, as a result, become as dirty as the handle itself. You’ve also got to carry a chain to use these security devices, which is heavy, and becomes as dirty as the device. Because of these worse than useless security devices, resident motorcyclists refuse to pay to use them, making the parking bays dedicated to them constantly empty and forcing all bikers to park their machines like sardines in free visitor bays, when they’re lucky enough to find a space within reasonable walking distance to their destination.
Now, we have found out that Westminster Council have also bought 200 of these unpopular and useless ground anchors, in a desparate last minute attempt to justify their motorcycle parking tax. It is obviously a lot more important to Westminster Councillor Chalkley to keep the employees and shareholders of his pay by phone parking supplier (Verrus UK Ltd) wealthy, by paying them 8 pence for every pound collected from parking transactions, than have the decency to consult motorcyclists, before wasting their money in purchasing useless security devices. After all, why is he worried about wasting more than £41,000 worth of taxpayers’ money (excluding installation costs) in those useless ground anchors, if this can (in his own dreams) help to push through his motorcycle parking tax, which brings in millions of pounds per annum?
And now it’s the turn of Camden Borough Council to buy and install this rubbish. Who is next at wasting thousands of taxpayers’ money?
Let’s not forget that all three councils, Westminster, Camden and the RBKC, are members of the Partnerships in Parking scheme, established by Westminster’s former Director of Parking, Alastair Gilchrist, in order to harmonise parking regulations across London. What was a very good idea in the first place seems to be seriously lacking of communication and consultation between members of the scheme, and we have here a great example to illustrate this. What the hell are these guys talking about during their quarterly meetings? Well, let’s at least hope that they’re talking about the 150 pages document, prepared by the No To Bike Parking Tax campaign, in which it is explained how Westminster City Council wasted some £675,000 of taxpayers’ money in setting up a scheme that could well turn out to be illegal (download a copy of the document here for more information).
Sources (click to view):-
Purchase of 200 security devices by Westminster Council
Installation of motorcycle security devices in Camden
8 pence for every pound paid to Verrus UK Ltd
Further reading (click to view):-
Bikers are getting angry at the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea
Kensington & Chelsea are having a taste of Westminster’s defaced bike parking signs
Residents’ bike parking bays in Kensington & Chelsea continue to be defaced
Please join and support the campaign to stop Westminster Council from stealth taxing motorcyclists to park before their scheme spreads all over the UK and the rest of Europe. For further details, visit http://www.notobikeparkingtax.com/
Rejoignez le groupe de manifestants contre le stationnement payant des motocyclistes a Westminster avant que cela ne se propage dans le reste du Royaume-Uni et l’Union Europeenne. Pour plus d’informations, consultez http://www.notobikeparkingtax.com/
If you have a story you would like to see published on UK France Bikers.com, please contact us here.
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Westminster City Council was yet again the subject of bad publicity yesterday in the West End Extra, which is an independent newspaper distributed to local residents. We were amused to see that Councillor Danny Chalkley was again the driver of this very negative article, with his ludicrous proposal to extend controlled parking hours from 6.30pm to midnight every day (except Sundays, for the moment), in a view to raising revenue and filling Westminster Council’s £22 million hole in its budget.
The bit that really has drawn our attention (and made us laugh) is this:-
“City Hall parking boss Councillor Danny Chalkley, who has become a hate figure for motorists in recent months following a tide of negative publicity for his parking operation, insisted the charges were nothing more than a strategy to tackle congestion”.
Obviously, we quite like the tone of this sentence, which we believe is a very fair reflection of the truth. Councillor Danny Chalkley has effectively become a “hate figure” for road users. He started with pissing off motorcyclists with his bike parking tax, and now he’s pissing off car drivers and the West End business community with his proposed extension of controlled parking hours. What’s interesting though is to see how the same Chalkley had managed to brain wash the Society of London Theatres back in May 2009, when they sent a letter (drafted by Chalkley’s parking department) to the Chairman of the No To Bike Parking Tax campaign to ask him to stop the demonstration at the time against motorcycle parking charges, when now we have heard that the same Society of London Theatres is furious at Chalkley’s latest proposals, which they fear will have a detremental impact on their business.
We wonder who Danny Chalkley has not yet managed to piss off with his continued determination to make parking an enormous source of income for Westminster City Council. Not only did he manage last year to make a profit of £35 million out of his parking operations (although using parking to make revenue is illegal following a 1995 High Court judgement), but he also managed to waste £15 million worth of taxpayers’ money in a failed CCTV system, which didn’t meet the requirements of the DfT’s Traffic Management Act.
What has also amused us in yesterday’s West End Extra article is this:-
“Kevin Goad, Westminster’s head of commissioning for city management, said: (…) We are listening to the views made by all those who would be affected and will consult fully on what are currently just proposals”.
Oh sweet, sweet, sweet, as if we were going to believe him! He has ignored more than 3,000 written objections to the making of permanent Traffic Orders for the motorcycle parking tax and now he’s trying to make us believe that the council will consult fully on their parking extended control hours proposals. Could it be that these public servants have learned the lessons from their experience of the motorcycle parking tax? We pretty much doubt it, they’ll simply ignore whatever the public have to say, and come up with some non-sense spin to hide the truth, that is to rescue a broken council.
Kevin Goad goes on to say: (…) Our final decision will be made in a manner which is totally transparent and open to scrutiny”.
Right, Mr Goad, would you please open and show us the council’s financial books!
Source (click on the picture to enlarge):-
Click on the picture to enlarge
Please join and support the campaign to stop Westminster Council from stealth taxing motorcyclists to park before their scheme spreads all over the UK and the rest of Europe. For further details, visit http://www.notobikeparkingtax.com/
Rejoignez le groupe de manifestants contre le stationnement payant des motocyclistes a Westminster avant que cela ne se propage dans le reste du Royaume-Uni et l’Union Europeenne. Pour plus d’informations, consultez http://www.notobikeparkingtax.com/
If you have a story you would like to see published on UK France Bikers.com, please contact us here.
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Following Tory Councillor Danny Chalkley’s decision to make his controversial stealth tax on motorcycle parking permanent in the Central London Borough of Westminster, not only has such decision been the subject of very bad publicity in the British press, but a few French motorcycle newspapers and websites have also been reporting what they consider to be an absurd decision.
We are not surprised at all to see how angry the French are at Chalkley’s decision. Many of our French readers based all over France have been writing to us to express both their disgust and anger at a decision they regard as a totally unfair and unjustified attack on motorcyclists by a bunch of British politicians who are paid to just sit in their office all day and come up with some stupid ideas designed to bring easy money to offset the millions of losses they have made as a result of their incompetence, such as £15 million loss in a failed CCTV system, £17 million investments in now failed Icelandic Banks and £22 million budget overspend.
We have today found out that Westminster City Council made a profit surplus of £35 million last year from parking alone, and this was without their evil motorcycle parking tax, which has so far brought the “revenue-neutral” sum of over £2 million. Not to mention Chalkley’s latest proposals to extend parking control hours from 6.30pm to midnight from Monday to Saturday which, if implemented, will bring another £7 million into the pocket of the wealthiest Council in the United Kingdom. How does that make you feel? Speech less, disgusted, horrified, especially when you hear that £12 million of the £35 million profit surplus was paid to NSL Services Ltd, in charge of Westminster’s parking operations. And when you find out how NSL treat their staff with disgusting washing facilities and awful working conditions, you wonder what on earth they do with all this dosh. And finally comes into the picture Westminster’s pay-by-phone parking supplier, Verrus UK Ltd, who, according to a recent Freedom of Information request, receives 8 pence for every pound spent by motorists and motorcyclists on parking! So, after all that, how much is left in Westminster’s coffers to benefit road users, who have been heavily stealth taxed for the sake of paying the wages of employees in private companies? The right answer is not much…
Anyway, while visiting a motorcycle shop in Paris the other day and mentionning Chalkley’s evil attack on bikers, the shop owner said: “Don’t worry, this sort of thing will never come our way”. When we asked why he was so sure, he replied: “Local authorities here will never dare to introduce something like this. If they want to see all the roads in Central Paris completely blocked for hours every single day and all their parking signs vandalised every single night, then they know what they’ve got to do”.
Is this not what’s starting to happen in London… with 18 months delay?
Sources (click to access links):-
UK Councils: Enforcing the law or stealing money?
In French: Parking deux-roues payant - Londres le rend définitif en 2010
In French: Stationnement moto a Londres - les motards manifestent!
Please join and support the campaign to stop Westminster Council from stealth taxing motorcyclists to park before their scheme spreads all over the UK and the rest of Europe. For further details, visit http://www.notobikeparkingtax.com/
Rejoignez le groupe de manifestants contre le stationnement payant des motocyclistes a Westminster avant que cela ne se propage dans le reste du Royaume-Uni et l’Union Europeenne. Pour plus d’informations, consultez http://www.notobikeparkingtax.com/
If you have a story you would like to see published on UK France Bikers.com, please contact us here.
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Who could have possibly guessed that a public authority that used to be considered as the Tory Golden Council would now be the subject of so much bad publicity?
We initially thought that the introduction of a charge, that subsequently turned out to be a stealth tax, on motorcycle parking in the Central London Borough of Westminster was just an isolated case to punish a group of road users for using a non-congestant, efficient, reliable, cheaper and less polluting mode of transport. Not only this tax is a punitive attempt by Conservative Councillor Danny Chalkley to discourage the use of motorbikes and scooters in Central London, but is also a way of raising substantial revenue without any effort and investment.
When we actually found out that Westminster Council were far more interested in spreading their motorcycle parking tax nationally, across the United Kingdom, than just enforcing it in their own borough, we thought that this was just going a step too far.
Back in March 2008, 5 months before the introduction of their bike parking tax on an trial basis, Westminster parking boys (Councillor Danny Chalkley, Kevin Goad and Alastair Gilchrist) were already looking at rolling it out nationally through their Partnerships in Parking (PiP) scheme, which is currently the subject of an investigation by the European Commission for potential breach of European law in setting up the Verrus pay by phone parking technology, which the scheme blatantly encourages other councils to use, without going through the required tendering process to allow fair competition between suppliers within the European Union. Not to mention that the European Commission is also investigating the manner in which the same Verrus pay by phone parking technology was implemented in Westminster alone, as they believe the Council did not properly carry out the required tendering process, even within their own borough. All this could have severe consequences for Westminster City Council, their pay by phone parking strategy and PiP scheme, which could both be seriously compromised. Let’s wait and see the verdict.
Newspapers this week are full of articles about parking in Westminster. The BBC have managed to get hold of an internal report in which it is clearly disclosed that Westminster Council has an enormous budget overspend of £22 million and, for this reason, they are considering extending their parking controlled hours from 6.30pm to midnight, Monday to Saturday. The hilarious thing is when Councillor Danny chalkley denies in a TV interview that his proposal is to raise revenue, but instead to manage road traffic and kerb space in Westminster. Yeah right, who’s going to believe another lie of his? Even major newspapers (you will find the links at the end of this post) report that Danny Chalkley is only interested in revenue rasing to address the £22 million budget overspend, resulting from the mistakes made by some incompetent Tory Councillors, who have proved their inability to manage taxpayers’ money effectively.
We now leave you with a quote that we have spotted in today’s Evening Standard:-
“If Chalkley were concerned about traffic circulation he would deal with the chief cause of congestion, his own obsession with red lights and one-way streets and the roadworks that have left both him and the Mayor, Boris Johnson, helpless in the face of London’s road-digging anarchists. He should cure this before making further assaults on other road users.
Chalkley knows this is not the issue. He is concerned not with keeping traffic moving but with revenue. His council now raises far more from motorists in parking charges and fines (£81 million) than it does even from council tax (£48 million). This is a serious fiscal distortion. What should be a local tax on residential and business space is constrained by government rate-capping. As a result, pressure to find extra resources for the council is diverted to other revenues, almost entirely parking and traffic fines. They now raise £560 million across London as a whole and constitute nothing more than a supertax”.
And after all that, the same Chalkley dares to say that his motorcycle parking tax is “revenue neutral”…! It will certainly be the case in a few weeks time if he continues to waste thousands of taxpayers’ money in constantly replacing and cleaning vandalised motorcycle parking signs across his broken borough.
Further reading:-
BBC – London council “misleading” over “illegal parking plan”
BBC – Westminster Council parking plan designed to net £7m
Evening Standard – Westminster to ban free parking in the evening
Evening Standard – Why the parking war on drivers? Well, it’s a nice earner
Please join and support the campaign to stop Westminster Council from stealth taxing motorcyclists to park before their scheme spreads all over the UK and the rest of Europe. For further details, visit http://www.notobikeparkingtax.com/
Rejoignez le groupe de manifestants contre le stationnement payant des motocyclistes a Westminster avant que cela ne se propage dans le reste du Royaume-Uni et l’Union Europeenne. Pour plus d’informations, consultez http://www.notobikeparkingtax.com/
If you have a story you would like to see published on UK France Bikers.com, please contact us here.
Si vous avez une experience a partager et que vous souhaiteriez voir publiee sur UK France Bikers.com, n’hesitez pas a nous contacter en cliquant ici.
“DO NOT PAY TO PARK HERE! No fines can be issued where signs are unreadable. Take a photo as evidence of invalid signage”.
These are the new instructions we have today found displayed in Westminster’s motorcycle parking bays. So, this time, not only have the signs been defaced with thick black paint, but written instructions advising bikers not to pay for their parking were also displayed, which is a brand new development that we haven’t seen before.
We have been advised that a large number of bike parking signs were found defaced (again!) on Sunday morning, then repaired on Sunday afternoon by Westminster Council, to finally be all defaced again on Sunday evening. This is just hilarious! It appears that there is now an army of unknown citizens hanging around and constantly defacing all these motorcycle parking signs.
We wonder how long Westminster Councillor Danny Chalkley is going to continue to hang around like a clown with his bike parking tax. According to the Evening Standard, he’s already wasted more than £60,000 worth of taxpayers’ money to replace and repair vandalised parking signs and keep the shareholders and employees of his pay-by-phone parking supplier, Verrus, happy and wealthy. More than £60,000 of public money spent so far on keeping his ridiculous and hated motorcycle parking tax scheme going, thus increasing the Council’s enormous budget overspend of £22 million, as recently reported by the BBC.
Despite the thousands of objections Chalkley received to his motorcycle parking tax and the thousands of bikers who have been protesting in the streets of Westminster and bringing Central London to a standstill at many occasions, he has totally ignored them all and made his scheme ”permanent” with effect from today.
Well, although UK France Bikers.com does not support any form of illegal protest, we must confess that we find all this vandalism very entertaining indeed. While defacing the bike parking signs may well be one of the most effective ways to eradicate this unwanted stealth tax, it is very sad to realise that bikers have no other option available to make their voice heard than vandalise the street furniture and undertake legal proceedings against Westminster City Council for suspected breach of procurement contracts in the implementation of the Verrus pay by phone parking technology.
As Councillor Danny Chalkley doesn’t understand the concept of peaceful dialogue and protest, the only way to get rid of this bike parking tax once for good might well be to take some more radical action, whether by vandalising the parking signs or taking the Council to court. Either way, Chalkley is putting Westminster City Council into very deep trouble, just at the right time with the local elections taking place this coming May…
Please join and support the campaign to stop Westminster Council from stealth taxing motorcyclists to park before their scheme spreads all over the UK and the rest of Europe. For further details, visit http://www.notobikeparkingtax.com/
Rejoignez le groupe de manifestants contre le stationnement payant des motocyclistes a Westminster avant que cela ne se propage dans le reste du Royaume-Uni et l’Union Europeenne. Pour plus d’informations, consultez http://www.notobikeparkingtax.com/
If you have a story you would like to see published on UK France Bikers.com, please contact us here.
Si vous avez une experience a partager et que vous souhaiteriez voir publiee sur UK France Bikers.com, n’hesitez pas a nous contacter en cliquant ici.
Earlier this month, we published a post to report how the motorcycle parking bays specifically dedicated to residents in the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea (RBKC) were having a little taste of the medicine that continues to be administered to Westminster City Council by some unknown citizens, to force the Council to scrap their highly unpopular motorcycle parking tax. A large number of bike bays in Westminster continue to be “upgraded” by having their signs defaced or stolen by a group of unknown citizens, in order to make the local parking tax unenforceable and therefore maintain free parking throughout the borough.
It appears that a large number of motorcyclists continue to be very unhappy with the RBKC’s parking policy, which includes the provision of 960 spaces in bike bays for resident use only, subject to purchasing and displaying a parking permit. While the RBKC continues to provide free motorcycle parking for visitors, resident bays are constantly empty thus forcing all motorcyclists (residents and visitors) to park their motorbikes and scooters like sardines, in the remaining 1,368 free spaces available in visitor bays. If you’re a visitor to the RBKC, it is now almost impossible to quickly find a space to park close to your destination because residents (and we don’t blame them) refuse to pay for parking in the bays dedicated to them.
We have recently been made aware of an increasing number of defaced residents bike parking bays in Kensington & Chelsea, where the signs painted on the ground to advise motorcyclists of the requirement to purchase a resident parking permit to use those bays are covered in thick black paint, making them useable by everyone free of charge.
We had never seen so many bikes parked in a bay that is normally for residents use only! Below is what a resident bike parking bay normally looks like in the RBKC, i.e. it is completely empty.
We wonder how many letters and emails of complaints the RBKC has received over the past 18 months with regards to their stupid motorcycle parking policy, which makes a substantial amount of kerb space totally unused, due to 960 resident spaces being constantly left empty. This is very poor kerb space management, but like their Tory colleagues in Westminster, the RBKC Councillors also seem to ignore the public and pretend to know better than everyone else. Wouldn’t one think that because motorcyclists use the services on a daily basis, they are therefore better placed to provide some constructive feedback to the Council? We wouldn’t even like to think of how much the RBKC has spent on the purchase and installation of 960 security devices in resident bays, all this for absolutely nothing and being a complete waste of taxpayers’ money.
In the meantime, when you see a defaced bike parking bay in Kensington & Chelsea (as shown on the above photo), you should be able to park your motorcycle in it free of charge (although at your own risk), as no one can be expected to guess who is allowed to park in there when the signs are not entirely and clearly visible. Should you decide to park your bike in a defaced resident bay, you should take a picture of the bay as a proof that it is defaced, in case you need to challenge a potentially invalid PCN.
While UK France Bikers.com does not condone any activity that could be considered as vandalism, we can only assume that the continued “upgrading” of the residents bike parking bays is a clear indication that something is seriously wrong and we would expect the RBKC to thouroughly re-think their motorcycle parking strategy at their earliest opportunity.
It’s always a very bad idea to treat motorcyclists like cash cows, isn’t it?
Please join and support the campaign to stop Westminster Council from stealth taxing motorcyclists to park before their scheme spreads all over the UK and the rest of Europe. For further details, visit http://www.notobikeparkingtax.com/
Rejoignez le groupe de manifestants contre le stationnement payant des motocyclistes a Westminster avant que cela ne se propage dans le reste du Royaume-Uni et l’Union Europeenne. Pour plus d’informations, consultez http://www.notobikeparkingtax.com/
If you have a story you would like to see published on UK France Bikers.com, please contact us here.
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Following Councillor Danny Chalkley’s recent decision to make the motorcycle parking tax permanent in Westminster, a large number of protestors have intensified their fight against it. Earlier this month, we published a couple of posts including some pictures of defaced bike parking signs, which were subsequently cleaned or replaced by Council contractors and defaced again by angry citizens, opposed to the introduction of yet another Tory stealth tax.
This week, while a large number of parking signs have remained defaced in Westminster, thus making the motorcycle tax unenforceable, a number of angry bikers have sent postcards of those defaced signs (left) to all Westminster Councillors and resident associations (83 in total), asking a very simple but rather embarrassing question:-
How much is Danny Chalkley’s motorcycle parking charging scheme costing Westminster City Council? Please ask him.
According to recent articles in the press, more than £60,000 has so far been spent by the Council to replace or clean defaced bike parking signs. That’s more than £60,000 of taxpayers’ money wasted on a ridiculous scheme, designed to fill up the coffers of Europe’s wealthiest local authority and discourage the use of motorcycles, as an economical, reliable, non-congestant and less pollutant mode of transport in Central London.
Every time we walk or ride in Westminster, we come across more defaced or missing bike parking signs, so we can only assume that the amount so far spent by the Council to replace or clean those signs will keep rising, unless Councillor Danny Chalkley decides to spend the money he’s been taking from taxpayers in a slightly more productive manner.
While temperatures went down to freezing levels last week, £60,000 could have well been spent on gritting icy pavements (right) to protect Councillor Angela Harvey’s “little old ladies” from falling and breaking their arms or legs. But no, £60,000 was instead spent on replacing or cleaning defaced bike parking signs to make sure that bikers would be spending their daily £1 and keep Verrus’ employees and shareholders more wealthy than ever (we have recently found that Verrus UK Ltd takes 8 pence of every pound collected by Westminster City Council from parking).
This is how a group of Conservative Councillors prefer to keep people who have not elected them happier and wealthier than those who have taken the trouble (or made the mistake) to go and vote for them, in the hope that their interests and money would be protected and spent wisely.
Source: No To Bike Parking Tax forum
Please join and support the campaign to stop Westminster Council from stealth taxing motorcyclists to park before their scheme spreads all over the UK and the rest of Europe. For further details, visit http://www.notobikeparkingtax.com/
Rejoignez le groupe de manifestants contre le stationnement payant des motocyclistes a Westminster avant que cela ne se propage dans le reste du Royaume-Uni et l’Union Europeenne. Pour plus d’informations, consultez http://www.notobikeparkingtax.com/
If you have a story you would like to see published on UK France Bikers.com, please contact us here.
Si vous avez une experience a partager et que vous souhaiteriez voir publiee sur UK France Bikers.com, n’hesitez pas a nous contacter en cliquant ici.
We have today found out that Councillor Danny Chalkley, in charge of parking at Westminster Council, has plans to charge motorists up to £5 per hour between 6.30pm and midnight from Monday to Saturday, although parking on these days and between these times is currently free of charge.
According to today’s BBC London broadcast, which you can watch below, Westminster’s books currently show a total overspend of £22 million compared with budget. But considering the Council’s extremely poor ability to control and manage costs, Councillor Chalkley dares to advise that his proposed extended parking control hours are not to balance the Council’s books! This man really treats the public he’s been elected to serve like idiots, doesn’t he?
Here is a laughable extract taken from today’s BBC London broadcast with Councillor Chalkley:-
Interviewer: “You’re doing this to balance your books, aren’t you?”
Chalkley’s response: “No, it’s not correct that we’re doing this to revenue raise [although the proposal report clearly states that Westminster Council currently has a £22 million overspend compared with budget, per the BBC broadcast]. We’re doing this from a policy perspective because we want to manage the city and keep the streets of Westminster running freely”.
UK France Bikers.com thinks that Chalkley is doing this purely because he’s never been more desparate to find and implement policies designed to address the Council’s enormous financial gap in a view to boosting his political career. But, in our opinion, he doesn’t realise that, with Westminster Council elections taking place in four months time, he may well be losing thousands of votes, thus seriously compromise his potential re-election.
It should be noted that Councillor Chalkley, together with 30 of his fellow Conservative Councillors, have decided (behind the back of the public, of course) to give themselves the benefit of an official free parking permit all over Westminster. Although these guys are not supposed to use their free permit outside their official hours of duty, a Freedom of Information request revealed that 18 of them do use it 24/7 and are therefore in breach of the Council’s internal parking policy, as they may have delibarately not purchased a resident parking permit for their personal use. So why would Chalkley care about extending parking control hours in the evenings since he may park his car free of charge while taking his family out to restaurants, cinemas and theatres?
While he’s unlikely to be criticised by his fellow Council Conservative colleagues, who also hold a free parking permit, it appears that, according to BBC London, a large number of businesses operating in the evenings (restaurants, cinemas, theatres etc) are prepared to fight against Chalkley’s ludicrous proposals.
We must say that we are very much amused to hear Chalkley’s proposals today, while his parking operations are being investigated by the European Commission (case number SG-CDC-2008A-7695) and Office of Fair Trading (case number EPIC/ENQ/E/75795) following a series of suspicions that the Verrus pay-by-phone technology may have been implemented illegally in Westminster. If those suspicions are proved to be right, the entire Westminster pay-by-phone parking network provided by Verrus may well have to go.
We are glad to realise that motorcyclists are not the only group of citizens angry at Chalkley. It looks like he’s seriously annoying everyone at the moment, including car drivers, bikers, theatres, restaurants, shops, cinemas, who are all prepared to fight against his ridiculous proposals.
After announcing the permanence of the motorcycle parking stealth tax and the possible extension of controlled parking hours for motorists after 6.30pm, what’s coming next? Be careful, cyclists, you may well be next on the agenda of this broken Conservative Council.
Further reading:
BBC - London council “misleading” over “illegal parking plan”
BBC – Westminster Council parking plan designed to net £7m
Nutsville – Councillor Chalkley a broken and desparate man
Crossroads Rider – Record depths reached
PenaltyChargeNotice – Parking charges until midnight
Evening Standard – Westminster to ban free parking in the evening
Londonist – Westminster parking plan illegal
Please join and support the campaign to stop Westminster Council from stealth taxing motorcyclists to park before their scheme spreads all over the UK and the rest of Europe. For further details, visit http://www.notobikeparkingtax.com/
Rejoignez le groupe de manifestants contre le stationnement payant des motocyclistes a Westminster avant que cela ne se propage dans le reste du Royaume-Uni et l’Union Europeenne. Pour plus d’informations, consultez http://www.notobikeparkingtax.com/
If you have a story you would like to see published on UK France Bikers.com, please contact us here.
Si vous avez une experience a partager et que vous souhaiteriez voir publiee sur UK France Bikers.com, n’hesitez pas a nous contacter en cliquant ici.
As many of our readers will know, the vast majority of the motorcycle parking signs in Westminster have been “upgraded” in the last couple of weeks (see photo on the right) by a group of unknown citizens, angry at Councillor Danny Chalkley, who has recently decided to stealth tax bikers for parking on a permanent basis, despite the thousands of objections he received during the experimental phase of his ludicrous motorcycle charging scheme.
While riding and walking in the streets of Westminster at lunch time today, we noticed that quite a few bike parking signs had been replaced or cleaned over the weekend, thus increasing the amount of taxpayers’ money spent on an unwanted scheme, instead of investing the same money in slightly more productive ways. We can be sure that Councillor Angela Harvey’s favourite “little old ladies” would have preferred to see their money spent on improving their safety, as she suggested, rather than on parking signs which will, without a doubt, be defaced again in the near future.
Anyway, we must say that we really had a good laugh not only when we noticed that the vast majority of the motorcycle parking bays we saw today had their signs cleaned or replaced by a Tory Council desparate to make the shareholders and employees of their pay-by-phone system provider, Verrus UK Limited, wealthier but also, when we noticed that the same bays were all missing one of the two lower signs, where instructions on how to pay the bike parking tax are normally shown.
Below is a sample of pictures of the numerous motorcycle parking bays we saw today with only one lower sign…
…But they each used to have two lower signs backing each other like this:-
Does this mean that Westminster Council has decided to clean or replace only half of the lower defaced bike parking signs, in order to restore the parking tax as quickly as possible and save precious time and costs to serve the shareholders and employees of Verrus, rather than their own residents and little old ladies? Could it also mean that they are running out of motorcycle signs, thus have decided to just display one lower sign per bay in order to maximise the number of bays where the tax may be enforced? Or would we dare to believe that angry citizens have removed parking signs in a view to making the tax unenforceable?
We just don’t know, but whatever has been going on, it would perhaps be a good idea, if your bike is issued with a PCN in a bay where one of the lower signs is missing, to request (by way of Freedom of Information if necessary) the Traffic Management Order (TMO) for the street or road where the bay is located. If the parking signs displayed in the bay (or any other details) are not exactly as described in the TMO, then your PCN may be invalid and possibly cancelled, should you challenge it. It could be further argued that since car parking bays are equipped with two lower signs, then why not the motorcycle ones, which used to? This is just a suggestion and does not mean that your PCN will be cancelled, but it might be worth giving it a try.
Since we have today seen a fair proportion of motorcycle parking bays equipped with only one lower sign rather than the usual two, we can only assume that quite a few motorcyclists will try and get their PCN cancelled in the next few days, which may inevitably generate a lot of administration work for Mr Chalkley’s parking department!
Good luck to all and let us know how you got on!
Please join and support the campaign to stop Westminster Council from stealth taxing motorcyclists to park before their scheme spreads all over the UK and the rest of Europe. For further details, visit http://www.notobikeparkingtax.com/
Rejoignez le groupe de manifestants contre le stationnement payant des motocyclistes a Westminster avant que cela ne se propage dans le reste du Royaume-Uni et l’Union Europeenne. Pour plus d’informations, consultez http://www.notobikeparkingtax.com/
If you have a story you would like to see published on UK France Bikers.com, please contact us here.
Si vous avez une experience a partager et que vous souhaiteriez voir publiee sur UK France Bikers.com, n’hesitez pas a nous contacter en cliquant ici.
In the past year, we came across a few chocking examples where large amounts of taxpayers’ money had been wasted by Westminster Council.
We very well know that Westminster Council have always been very good at collecting money from the public (their ridiculous bike parking tax illustrates this very well), but the key question we are now asking ourselves is whether they have been spending all this money wisely. In other words, has the Council been serving the needs and wants of its residents, visitors and other stakeholders by spending their money adequately?
Let’s answer this question by quoting a few key examples:-
* In March 2009, £15 million worth of taxpayers’ money was spent in a failed CCTV system, with cameras that were of too low a resolution (704 x 576 pixels) to meet the DfT’s Traffic Management Act.
* £17 million worth of taxpayers’ money was put at risk by the Tory decision to invest in now-failed Icelandic Bank Landisbanki, even though the Council’s Treasury Management advisers (Sector) had said on 13th May 2008 that credit ratings agency Fitch had assigned a negative outlook to Landisbanki in terms of its long term A rating.
* The same Westminster Council paid Steer Davies Gleave £12,140 to conduct an on-street survey to find out what motorists thought of the parking facilities in Westminster. 628 motorists were interviewed and the results were so desastrous that Councillor Chalkley decided to ignore the survey completely.
This is what is being done with our money in Westminster!
* Westminster Council spent more than £675,000 worth of taxpayers’ money to set up their Partnerships in Parking (PiP) scheme, which is now suspected to be illegal under European law. The scheme blatantly encourages other councils to adopt Verrus (the pay-by-phone parking system currently in use in Westminster), in exchange for a rather high fee, without going through the necessary tendering process, which may make the overall scheme completely illegal. In addition, the European Commission and the Office of Fair Trading are currently investigating the way in which the Verrus pay-by-phone parking system was implemented in Westminster, including the lack of tendering process conducted by the Council to give a fair chance to other organisations to present their products and services, in accordance with European law.
* At least £60,000 spent so far to replace and clean a high number of defaced motorcycle parking signs. A group of unknown individuals have decided to take radical action against the Council, following Councillor Chalkley’s most democratic decision to make his motorcycle parking tax permanent, despite the 3,000+ written objections that he received and the monthly protests organised by the No To Bike Parking Tax campaign attended by thousands of motorcyclists, bringing Central London to a standstill during rush hour. The important thing to note is that, had Councillor Chalkley listened to the public and scrapped his ridiculous motorcycle parking tax, the £60,000+ spent so far would have been spent on serving the Westminster community, as opposed to replacing and cleaning unwanted parking signs which, undoubtedly, will be defaced again, as they are replaced or cleaned.
* More than £41,000 have recently been spent on the purchase of 200 security devices (ground anchors) for motorcycle parking. The problem is that those security devices are also in use in the neighbouring Borough of Kensington & Chelsea, where they have proved to be highly unpopular. Unsurprisingly, and as confirmed in a Freedom of Information request, Westminster Council failed to conduct any kind of consultation prior to purchasing the security devices. Since they have failed to listen to thousands of motorcyclists opposed to their bike parking tax, why would have they bothered asking them about those security devices, after all?
Anyway, can you imagine how much money these Conservative bureaucrats are taking from the public on a daily basis to then be completely wasted due to their incompetence and lack of business sense?
How surprising is it when the same Conservative bureaucrats decide to introduce stealth taxes, such as on motorcycle parking for instance, in order to recover their losses? When we heard that Councillor Chalkley’s parking department was heading towards a £10 million deficit, we understood why he was so desparate to impose his bike parking tax and encourage other councils to adopt it through the potentially illegal PiP scheme, no matter the thousands of objections he had received.
And after all that, we hear Councillor Colin Barrow, Leader of Westminster City Council, say that “every penny counts” and also David Cameron, Leader of the Conservative Party, say that he will reduce or scrap stealth taxes, if elected. He might well do, but his local councils will not…
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Please join and support the campaign to stop Westminster Council from stealth taxing motorcyclists to park before their scheme spreads all over the UK and the rest of Europe. For further details, visit http://www.notobikeparkingtax.com/
Rejoignez le groupe de manifestants contre le stationnement payant des motocyclistes a Westminster avant que cela ne se propage dans le reste du Royaume-Uni et l’Union Europeenne. Pour plus d’informations, consultez http://www.notobikeparkingtax.com/
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If you have a story you would like to see published on UK France Bikers.com, please contact us here.
Si vous avez une experience a partager et que vous souhaiteriez voir publiee sur UK France Bikers.com, n’hesitez pas a nous contacter en cliquant ici.
Last month, we published a post titled “Bikers are getting angry at the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea”, where we explained how the Council quietly introduced 960 motorcycle parking spaces for their residents only, but for which their use is charged by means of a parking permit.
The Council has been trying hard to justify the residents’ charge with the installation of ground anchors to increase security, but the take-up of these devices has remained extremely low. The problem is that the vast majority of local residents are reluctant to pay for parking their bike, even in bays equipped with security devices. They therefore park their motorcycle in free bays dedicated to visitors, thus making it very difficult for the same visitors to park while visiting the borough.
The Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea (RBKC) have received many complaints about their unpopular motorcycle parking scheme, and despite this, they seem to continue with it, a bit like the Westminster Tory Councillors, who have chosen to ignore thousands of objections to their bike parking tax and are now facing the consequences of their choice.
Anyway, one of our readers has kindly sent us a few pictures of a residents motorcycle parking bay in the RBKC, where the ground painted word “permits” is defaced, thus making the affected bay usable by everyone and, most importantly, free of charge for all.
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We are not surprised to come across a defaced residents motorcycle parking bay in Kensington & Chelsea, given how fed up motorcyclists are with parking in tiny visitor spaces, while some 960 spaces in the residents’ bays are not being used at all. How frustrating is it when a visitor rides around for more than twenty minutes to find a space and sees plenty of unoccupied resident bays and so many over-crowded visitor bays?
Despite the many emails and letters that the RBKC has received from angry bikers over the past months, nothing has been done, so some individuals seem to have decided to take radical action and deface those resident bays to make them available to everyone, free of charge.
It sounds like the RBKC are now having a little taste of what Westminster City Council are currently going through with all their motorcycle parking signs defaced by a large group of protestors, fed up with dealing with a council that doesn’t listen.
We won’t be surprised if, in the near future, we notice that all the resident motorcycle parking bays have been defaced, costing the council thousands of pounds of lost parking revenue and taxpayers’ money. This is what happens when councillors refuse to listen to the people they are paid to serve.
Let’s not forget that, like Westminster City Council, the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea is a Conservative lead council… that says it all, doesn’t it?
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Please join and support the campaign to stop Westminster Council from stealth taxing motorcyclists to park before their scheme spreads all over the UK and the rest of Europe. For further details, visit http://www.notobikeparkingtax.com/
Rejoignez le groupe de manifestants contre le stationnement payant des motocyclistes a Westminster avant que cela ne se propage dans le reste du Royaume-Uni et l’Union Europeenne. Pour plus d’informations, consultez http://www.notobikeparkingtax.com/
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If you have a story you would like to see published on UK France Bikers.com, please contact us here.
Si vous avez une experience a partager et que vous souhaiteriez voir publiee sur UK France Bikers.com, n’hesitez pas a nous contacter en cliquant ici.
The Evening Standard have today published a rather short article (right) to report the decision made by Westminster’s Conservative Councillor Danny Chalkley to charge motorcyclists for parking on a permanent basis, from 25th January 2010.
First of all, what the article fails to mention is that the said charge is actually a STEALTH TAX imposed on motorcyclists for absolutely no reason whatsoever, other than for filling up Westminster Council’s coffers, as if the wealthiest local authority in Europe was struggling to cope with its financial demands. In exchange for £1 a day or £100 per annum, bikers get absolutely no extra benefit compared with when motorcycle parking was free and prior to the introduction of the tax, on 4th August 2008. The parking bays have remained in exactly the same conditions as when their use was free of charge, so would Mr Chalkley please explain to us what bikers are paying for that they didn’t use to have before? Nothing is the right answer, but if you ask Chalkley, he will either ignore your question or come up with some non-sense spin.
The charge is also a stealth tax because it doesn’t cost Westminster Council a single penny to maintain the motorcycle parking bays, as the council has clearly decided not to invest in them. A Freedom of Information request has revealed that not a single penny collected from the parking tax has actually been re-invested into motorcycle parking to directly benefit bikers, so again, what are they being charged for? Nothing is the right answer!
So let’s examine the context in which Conservative lead Westminster Council have decided to make their ridiculous motorcycle stealth tax permanent:-
* 3,000+ objections to the scheme received in February 2009 and again in July 2009.
* Monthly demonstrations by thousands of bikers bringing the traffic in Central London to a complete standstill during rush hour, something that the Council has never seen before, unlike parking officer Fitsall’s allegations.
* Hundreds of Freedom of Information requests submitted to Westminster Council in lieu of unanswered emails and letters from residents and commuters, thus considerably increasing the council’s workload and causing enormous and unnecessary stress to their staff.
* The vast majority of motorcycle parking signs defaced (not just 30 as stated in the Evening Standard’s article) by a very large group of bikers who have decided to take radical action to make their voice heard (after having been totally ignored), in June 2009 and again in January 2010, thus making the parking tax unenforceable and obliging the council to stupidly spend thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money to replace the signs until they get defaced all over again. This is instead of gritting icy pavements on which “little old ladies” could fall and who seem to be Councillor Angela Harvey’s primary concern these days.
* Investigations into Westminster’s parking affairs being currently carried out by the European Commission for suspected breach of EU law with regards to the lack of tendering process in the setting up of the Verrus pay-by-phone parking system, leading to the running of the Partnerships in Parking (PiP) scheme, which is entirely driven by Westminster City Council (official case number: SG-CDC-2008A-7695).
* Investigations into Westminster’s parking affairs currently carried out by the Office of Fair Trading, again for suspected breach of the law with regards to the pay-by-phone parking system (official case number: EPIC/ENQ/E/75795).
* Public inquiry demanded by thousands of bikers on 7th December 2009 to the Department of Communities & Local Government (DCLG) into the way more than £600,000 of taxpayers’ money granted to Westminster City Council were used to set up the Partnerships in Parking (PiP) scheme, suspected to be illegal.
And with the deep mess Councillor Chalkley, assisted by former Director of Parking Alastair Gilchrist, have put Westminster Council in, they still dare to say, according to the Evening Standard, that they have listened to motorcyclists! Had they genuinely listened to motorcyclists, as they suggest, Chalkley would have scrapped the bike parking tax. This is what thousands upon thousands of bikers have asked him to do, and guess what, he’s making it permanent and blaming his colleagues for doing so (“If it wasn’t for your public protests I could have quietly scrapped the M/C parking charges, but i am under pressure from my colleagues to make it permanent”, so he says – source: http://nutsville.com/?p=1532)!
Anyway, the word “permanent” in this context is meaningless. Bikers will carry on fighting against Westminster Council until this unwanted parking tax is fully scrapped, no matter how long it may take. In the meantime, and while Westminster Council’s parking activities are being investigated, a large number of bikers keep defacing all the parking signs, thus making motorcycle parking free in Westminster, despite the council’s threats to prosecute them, should they be caught.
We should soon find out who the real motorcycle parking criminals are… the fight is far from over!
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Please join and support the campaign to stop Westminster Council from stealth taxing motorcyclists to park before their scheme spreads all over the UK and the rest of Europe. For further details, visit http://www.notobikeparkingtax.com/
Rejoignez le groupe de manifestants contre le stationnement payant des motocyclistes a Westminster avant que cela ne se propage dans le reste du Royaume-Uni et l’Union Europeenne. Pour plus d’informations, consultez http://www.notobikeparkingtax.com/
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If you have a story you would like to see published on UK France Bikers.com, please contact us here.
Si vous avez une experience a partager et que vous souhaiteriez voir publiee sur UK France Bikers.com, n’hesitez pas a nous contacter en cliquant ici.
