Saturday, October 18, 2008

Micro Democracy - CPZ in SW20

Around about in SW20 car parking restrictions and yellow line prohibitions abound.
However an oasis of yellow line free, uncontrolled parking anarchy is still to
be found in a few streets including my own, half way between Raynes Park SW20 and Wimbledon Broadway SW19 town centres.

The local Merton council seemed to seek as governments everywhere do,
to control this uncontrolled parking state and 'consulted' the local residents as a precursor I supposed, to imposing what they term as a CPZ - a Controlled Parking Zone.

The results of this consultation were published this week and showed that by
a large majority locals do not want a CPZ. I was much surprised and pleased
then to receive a letter from Merton, to the effect that the Council
had decided to respect the locals' wishes by not imposing the CPZ after all.

This success may be short lived however because when governments want
a result which the people don't at first support, they can go on and on
organising referenda on the issue until a 'no' vote becomes a 'yes'.

Doubtless Irish Noes to Lisbon will be revisited in due course.

On the other hand the denizens of those parts of SW20 and SW19 who already
have CPZs I doubt will be given a fresh opportunity to abandon their CPZs
any time soon.

As for a referendum about whether the citizens of the UK would
wish to quit the EC - forget it.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Human Conflict

A time for reflection, given the fighting in Ukraine, Sudan,  Israel,  Gaza and Iran to name those areas which come to mind. There is or was...