As reported to the last Council meeting I have written to the Cabinet Member for Planning and Transport, at RBKC who has responded – “The situation is this. We used to give residents three days’ notice of a suspension, and have now increased it to seven days. If you have a residents permit you may park in residents’ bays, but the conditions of a residents permit are clear. The Council does have to suspend bays for a whole host of reasons and when suspended it is an offence to be parked illegally.
The advice we give to residents it that if they are parked in a residents’ bay and are not frequently using their car they should try to check the car once a day (A) to make sure it is safe and (B) to see if any future suspensions have been erected. The SEVEN days advanced warning means that in fact you need only check your car once every seven days which is I suspect a very long time for any car owner in London not to check their car. I check mine every day when I walk past it, although certainly do not drive it every day. If you go on holiday for say 2 weeks you can call the parking office [or visit the RBKC website] and check if any suspensions are planned further in advance, this is a useful service – or of course give the key to a neighbour to move the car if necessary.
If a resident is still in the suspended bay, despite the seven days warning, on the morning of the actual suspension which starts at 8.30 AM the parking department patrol all bays due for suspension. This they do early in the morning, if there are residents still in the imminent-to-be-suspended bay they send a TEXT message to the resident’s mobile phone, and this is the last chance to remove the car. This service is not a statutory service and if unfortunately the resident does not have a Mobile or does not get the text then that is unfortunate, but not an excuse for no PCN.”
Michael Stephen
Planning Committee Chairman