Electric vehicles bays in Westminster

 

Mr Mustard almost never drives into central London and still has a petrol car and will do so until he is too doddery to drive. He'll then have to be doddery on his bicycle or take the tube using his free (to him, Barnet Council have to pay for his journeys) Freedom Pass.

He thinks the only reason councils are helpful to EV charging operators, or provide facilities in lamp posts, is because there is supposedly money to be made. When he gets a chance he will try and find out the income which Barnet Council are garnering from the provision and what the costs are. It is a bad idea for councils to encourage car use in this way when they ought to be building tramways & better cycle lanes.

Electric cars weigh more than the petrol equivalent and so will cause more structural damage to roads which may only become apparent later as/if the market penetration of electric vehicles continues to grow.

Using his own car as an example, the electric version weighs approximately 45% more so wears out the road faster, emits more noxious tyre & brake particles into the air and is far more likely to result in death if it is driven into a human being.

That's all by the by, Mr Mustard was mostly interested to see how hard it would be for a non-resident to charge their car whilst visiting Westminster. Just over 1 in 7 bays in Westminster are available to visitors. Many people have misunderstood the signs, if it looks like the following you are meant to be charging an EV car and hold a resident permit.

 

Mr Mustard thinks there is a mis-match between the sign and the traffic order, for the sign above the City of Westminster cancelled the PCN as soon as an Appeal was started at the independent tribunal so if you have such a PCN Mr Mustard can help you. Once he has assessed the viability he will ask you to pay £40 to the North London Hospice and then he will take up the cudgels (non violently).

The end.

You wait months for a forum and then two come along at once

So here we have the poster for the official Barnet Council Resident's Forum at which you can ask any question that Barnet Council let you ask! See this earlier post on the subject, here.

click to enlarge; back to return

So all you can ask about is local street based and environmental issues. No difficult questions please and nothing that anyone has asked about in the last 6 months. They will be short and uninformative and undemocratic meetings. Mr Mustard will not be at them. If the person who designs this poster does not know how to use the apostrophe Mr Mustard suggests that you rename the forums the Forum for Residents to side-step your problem ( it should be Residents' Forum if you are interested i.e. the forum for a multiple number of residents. If only one resident shows up then it will be the Resident's Forum )

The new earlier time of 6pm is also too early as many people work until 5.30 and if they work out of borough, as the majority do, then it is impossible to get there on time. The previous start time of 7pm was a better one.

Mr Mustard did think that someone independent should run the forums and the Barnet Alliance of Public Services has acted. This organisation brings many folk together and you can read about them on their website here. So here is the poster for the meeting at which you will be able to ask anything that you like. It will be interesting to see how many councillors turn up from the ruling party, the ones who are making the decisions, stupid ones like removing parking meters.

Mr Mustard hopes to get to this meeting.

If you haven't been to a Residents' Forum before, why not go to both and see which format you prefer.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard