One of the decisive moments in the history of parking in the UK and the decision to move the responsibility from the Police to the municipalities was a terrible incident in London when illegally parked cars blocked fire access to an apartment building and as a result several children were burnt to death. At this point it became clear that the Police could not do the job and the argument changed from trying to get them to do a better job to taking it off them.
Therefore I was a little surprised to see that local residents in Essex were up in arms about proposals to ban parking on a street because the local Fire Brigade were struggling to gain access because of parked cars. Now I do not know the rights and wrongs of this; apparently when the scheme was proposed earlier and then dropped when the Brigade apparently found an alternative solution but the Brigade has raised its concerns again and Southend Council has resurrected the proposal. However, if the trade off is between fire safety and parking convenience for me it’s a no brainer.
Peter Guest
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