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[Nickbat]

I went to the dentist today and, as usual arrive with 0 minutes to spare. I parked as usual in the local authority car park and found all the pay and display machines covered in back plastic bin liners, secured with parcel tape. It turns out that the London Borough of Barnet is making ALL its car parking cashless. You MUST have a mobile phone to pay.

Needless to say, I'd left my mobile in my other coat and was unable to pay. In the end, I had to chance it and managed to get away without being ticketed.

Personally, I think this is all wrong. I am sure it may be convenient once you have set up an account on your mobile (although one driver said it was a nightmare getting registered), but I feel it is discriminatory to older drivers who do not have mobiles and a nightmare if your mobile has run out of power, or like me, you have left it at home. There should be a cash alternative, especially when they charge £1 per hour or part thereof. It's even worse in Mill Hill where they charge a £1 for 30mins. No wonder the local shopkeepers are angry. I never use the shops there anymore, I simply drive a wee bit further and use the free supermarket parking.

Rant over! 

     

[bigboykarl]

i always used to park at the back of boots when i went to mill hill bway..sainsburys/broadwalk if i was in edgware...but i get yr point and totally agree..think westminster is the same..read the other day that somebody had blown up 14 parking meters in Lewes ..maybe it's irate pensioners...lol

[I_want_an_Omega]

I went to the dentist today and, as usual arrive with 0 minutes to spare. I parked as usual in the local authority car park and found all the pay and display machines covered in back plastic bin liners, secured with parcel tape. It turns out that the London Borough of Barnet is making ALL its car parking cashless. You MUST have a mobile phone to pay.

Needless to say, I'd left my mobile in my other coat and was unable to pay. In the end, I had to chance it and managed to get away without being ticketed.

Personally, I think this is all wrong. I am sure it may be convenient once you have set up an account on your mobile (although one driver said it was a nightmare getting registered), but I feel it is discriminatory to older drivers who do not have mobiles and a nightmare if your mobile has run out of power, or like me, you have left it at home. There should be a cash alternative, especially when they charge £1 per hour or part thereof. It's even worse in Mill Hill where they charge a £1 for 30mins. No wonder the local shopkeepers are angry. I never use the shops there anymore, I simply drive a wee bit further and use the free supermarket parking.

Rant over! 

     

Is this on the Broadway itself? It used to be free parking there didn't it? I used to live in Colindale and my Mrs is from Mill Hill 

I got in an arguement with a copper once in the Broadway, I was reverse parking into a space and he had a go at me as I'd held up the traffic whilst I'd done it! The traffic coming the other way was stationary so the cars behind me had to wait until I'd parked as they couldn't go round - so, yes, I'd held them up for what - 10 seconds? Had a right go at me and threatened to book me for obstruction. I was only 18 at the time and several passers by came to my rescue. Most odd behaviour by the cop and I've never heard of anything like that since.

Hey ho.

[Nickbat]

i always used to park at the back of boots when i went to mill hill bway..sainsburys/broadwalk if i was in edgware

You can't now. Residents' only bays, yellow lines and only about 6 bays for cashless, expensive parking adjacent to Boots. 

[Nickbat]

I went to the dentist today and, as usual arrive with 0 minutes to spare. I parked as usual in the local authority car park and found all the pay and display machines covered in back plastic bin liners, secured with parcel tape. It turns out that the London Borough of Barnet is making ALL its car parking cashless. You MUST have a mobile phone to pay.

Needless to say, I'd left my mobile in my other coat and was unable to pay. In the end, I had to chance it and managed to get away without being ticketed.

Personally, I think this is all wrong. I am sure it may be convenient once you have set up an account on your mobile (although one driver said it was a nightmare getting registered), but I feel it is discriminatory to older drivers who do not have mobiles and a nightmare if your mobile has run out of power, or like me, you have left it at home. There should be a cash alternative, especially when they charge £1 per hour or part thereof. It's even worse in Mill Hill where they charge a £1 for 30mins. No wonder the local shopkeepers are angry. I never use the shops there anymore, I simply drive a wee bit further and use the free supermarket parking.

Rant over! 

     

Is this on the Broadway itself? It used to be free parking there didn't it? I used to live in Colindale and my Mrs is from Mill Hill 

I got in an arguement with a copper once in the Broadway, I was reverse parking into a space and he had a go at me as I'd held up the traffic whilst I'd done it! The traffic coming the other way was stationary so the cars behind me had to wait until I'd parked as they couldn't go round - so, yes, I'd held them up for what - 10 seconds? Had a right go at me and threatened to book me for obstruction. I was only 18 at the time and several passers by came to my rescue. Most odd behaviour by the cop and I've never heard of anything like that since.

Hey ho.

It was in days gone by. Then it became pay and display, 20p or 30p IIRC – with a voucher to get your money back if you shopped. Not now. It's £1 for half an hour  

[Nickbat]

If people want to use the Thameslink service from Mill Hill into London, you're faced with incredible costs. Local residents with driveways near the station are advertising them at £25 per day.

[Varche]

I have three mobile phones but haven't used any for five years. I wouldn't last five minutes in London. Last time I went I parked free all day right near Tower Bridge while I took my dad on the Belfast for old school boy dinner. I bet that has all changed now.

[Vamps]

If people want to use the Thameslink service from Mill Hill into London, you're faced with incredible costs. Local residents with driveways near the station are advertising them at £25 per day.

You can park all day on my drive for just £5.00, for the whole week...

[r1]

bet it is a expensive 0870 number that you have to phone as well

[Rods2]

So the unrelenting war on the motorist continues in finding more and more ways to inconvenience the them. 

I've been convinced for along time that the plan is to make driving a car as expensive and inconvenient as public transport, so there is still along way to go. 

I won't pay parking charges to shop, period, I will go / find somewhere else where the parking is free and shop there. If everybody boycotted these sort of outrageous charges and systems they would have to have a rethink. 

Still, I'm sure, people that the people that are quite happy to pay Dick Turpin high parking charges, have a warm glow is the social part of their brain knowing they are contributing towards the upkeep of the local community the council's CEO £150k+ salary with additional performance bonuses and a discretionary credit card for essential spending, like when they entertain visitors, the entry normally shows that they consume large amounts of chewing gum, while viewing a large single horned animal at the local zoo. 

A friend of mine used to work at the local council as an administrator, the same one that I'm sure that "pscocoa" is trying to get road surfacing information from. When asked, what is was like working for them was? Their normal reply was, alright, apart from a design fault in the building where they worked, the drains were too small, if they had made them bigger, they could have tipped the council tax payers money down them even faster. This would then be illustrated by several "you couldn't make it up stories" which were often as a result of the latest initiatives they had to implement from the Labour government. 

[Bionic]

  Freekin ell Nickbat - I wish I was one of them. Wonder if the other half will move down there to ease our retirement funds?

Once again its the job justifying, seat polishing, pen shuffling, tea swilling, biccy munching moronic public servants are seen to be doing their duty (unless they are on another strike)!!!!!!!!!
Exactly what planet are these jokers from?
I do suppose though that one of their perks is a free parking permit across the city

[Dishevelled Den]

Yes it's a fine example of how, for many, the acquisition of money reigns supreme and is considered to be the panacea to all financial ills - from those individuals seeking the money in rent for their driveways, to the officials taking the easy way out and simply charging more for their dwindling services.

The system (in this case) certainly works from the top down with those of us at street level being made to pay more for less, and the employment of technology (for benefit the of the administrators) simply confusing people, or inconveniencing them, to the degree where its easier not to seek a parking place or to take the chance and park without paying the fee.

It's a sad indictment on a country when its peoples are driven to consider that life is based solely on the acquisition of money from others who have little choice in acceding to those demands to pay up or, if they don’t or can’t, to go away and accept that that is the way things are now.

[Nickbat]

I received my local paper a short while ago and the headline story was about cashless parking and its effects on traders:

http://www.times-series.co.uk/news/9377820.Shopkeepers_challenge_council_over_parking_services/?ref=mc

From that story, the part that really grates is this:

"...Neil Richardson, the council’s highways manager, said there was no chance the pay and display machines would be reinstalled."

Is he not supposed to be our servant, rather than our master? The arrogance is astounding.