Clifton Expanded Parking Zone: who objected in our name?

We are strongly in favour of the Clifton Expanded Parking Zone, not for the number of spaces it provides, but because it would set back any attempts to improve permeability for and parking of bicycles, that scourge of the city.

We were therefore horrified to discover that someone -and we have no idea who- appears to have sent an objection to the council in in our name.

To make things worse -they have used our photograph collection to criticise the parking behaviour of clifton residents!

We don't condemn the things people are forced to do to park near their homes, shops or places of work.




No, we, like the Clifton Mayoral Candidate, recognise that these are things we are forced to do in an anti-car city.

But what has happened? Someone has sent an email in our name -which fortunately we got a cc'd copy of, to see the travesty of our raison-d'etre.



---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Bristol Traffic
Date: 6 January 2013 23:36
Subject: Objections to TRO proposal CAE/NMT/P/815
To: tro.comments@bristol.gov.uk
Cc: barbara.janke@bristol.gov.uk, simon.cook@bristol.gov.uk, alex.woodman@bristol.gov.uk, mark.wright@bristol.gov.uk, jon.rogers@bristol.gov.uk


Please find enclosed our objections to much of the TRO covering proposed new parking restrictions within Clifton and part of Cliftonwood.

As we state -backed up by photographic evidence- providing extra residential and short stay parking in the area, while making walking and cycling worse, will do nothing to improve the quality of life in clifton. It will merely supress walking and cycling -and so make congestion and parking worse.

Based on past experience, we fear that our feedback will be dismissed -despite the fact that our datasets are broader and more defensible than anyone else's in the city. We therefore close with a statement of intent: from the day that this consultation is closed, we will be reporting illegal parking to the police and/or council parking enforcement, depending on the location. This will do more to address Clifton's effective absence from the Cycling City project than anything in this TRO.

The actual document is even worse. It says -to quote one paragraph from the seven page document, 

Overall, our dataset implies that the problems that Clifton have is not "a lack of parking", it is the willingness of residents to park illegally, selfishly and dangerously -usually at the expense of pedestrians and cyclists. The near complete lack of enforcement has legitimised such actions.

These are harsh words coming from anyone! To have them come from us, Bristol's documentation of how the war-on-motoring makes our everyday drive to the shops round the corner, makes it even worse.

We have already sent an email denying responsibility for this document. However, we fear it is not enough.

Please, please please, can anyone who has not yet written in supporting the Clifton Expanded Parking Zone do so before the Jan 15 deadline!