Councils across the United Kingdom have been waging a war on cars by removing thousands of parking areas and replacing them with street furniture, bike shelters and flower beds.
Local authorities are the driving force behind the trend and claim that cars unfairly dominate high streets and town centres, while businesses feel the transformation could signal their downfall.
As part of a plan to combat climate change, Lambeth in south London plans to turn 25 per cent of its kerbside parking spaces into features that improve the community.
At the same time, the council intends to get rid of free parking spaces and double the cost of parking permits, increasing their revenue from £6 million to £12 million.
The Labour-led council are far from the only local authority preparing to switch parking for parklets in the name of being environmentally conscious.
Parklets, sometimes described as eyesores and a waste of taxpayers’ money, have seen swathes of pavements and parking areas replaced with seating spaces and flower beds.
Over the pandemic, US-style parklets were built in Britain’s towns and cities.
Councils gave businesses permission to build seating places on parts of the pavement and sometimes the side of the road so customers could sit outside.
Motorists have since warned that parklets were the latest example of their freedoms being eroded.
Hugh Bladon, the founder of Alliance of British Drivers, a lobby group for drivers, told a newspaper outlet back in 2020 that councils all over the country, the one thing they despise is anybody using a car or any type of four-wheeled vehicle.
He said they will do anything they can to make it as miserable as possible for motorists.
In Lambeth, the council has justified the policy because the number of car parking areas doesn’t reflect a fair or efficient use of space.
The Labour-led borough has a population of 330,000 and 58 per cent don’t own a car, yet 94 per cent of the kerbside in Lambeth is dedicated to car parking.
The ambitious Climate Action Plan wants at least 85 per cent of trips in Lambeth to be made by people walking, cycling or using public transport by 2030.
Officials plan to remove free parking spaces in the borough and consult residents on Controlled Parking Zones in the immediate future.
Under the council’s new plans, traffic in the borough has to drop by 27 per cent by 2030.
We initially used to have plenty of seats in London. Seats were dotted everywhere but because of the homeless crisis, many were taken away so that the homeless couldn’t sleep on the benches, then we had the pandemic and more were taken away because they didn’t want people sitting on them so that they could pass on the virus. NOW! they want to put them back, so why can’t they put them back where they were before, this has nothing to do with climate change, it’s about making tons of money.
Not that it’s going to matter much by then because they aim to kill off the high street shops, and it will all be online purchasing in the future, and if you behave yourself, you might even be able to buy groceries!
And people who work for these councils are the most self-loathing, miserable people on the globe – it takes a particular type of person to work for the council.
The councils think that fining or charging motorists will fill their coffers, but once all these high street shops have gone, these councils will lose a whole lot more in rates.
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 