City of London Approves Lorry Meters
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ON Thursday of last week the Corporation of the City of London gave formal approval to its street committee's proposals for the Zone 4 parking meter scheme, which includes the installation of chargeable meter bays for commercial vehicles in wharfside streets. The plan calls for 20 commercial bays in Upper Thames Street, four in Vine Street, three in Queenhithe and one in Cooper's Row.
The Zone 4 scheme now goes to the Ministry of Transport for approval and the Ministry will later publish the scheme —at which point official objections can be made. The Road Haulage Association and Traders Road Transport Association will almost certainly lodge objections, as they have opposed the idea of lorry meters very strenuously. A Corporation of London spokesman told The Commercial Motor that even if the proposed scheme went through without modification it could not come into effect before about April, 1965.
The City's commercial vehicle parking bays will vary from 25 ft, to 40 ft. long, to allow for vehicle sizes varying, and there will be gaps of several feet between each bay to allow for vehicles overhanging their own marked areas—this would be permissible. Charges will be the same as for cars under the rates to be introduced early next year, Le. is. for an hour, 2s. for two hours and 10s. excess for staying over into a third hour; as with cars, it would be an offence to exceed this total parking period.
Unlike traffic schemes in the provinces, London proposals do not carry an automatic right to a public inquiry if objections are lodged; the decision is entirely up to the Minister of Transport and, although there have been occasions when he has allowed a London scheme to go to public hearing, it is more Usual for objections to be considered privately at Ministry level.
It is understood that the Ministry's refusal to. accede to the points already raised in objection by operator associations is based on the fact that, in any street parking schemes, there has always been a clear distinction drawn between vehicles that are waiting and those which are loading or unloading. The latter are permitted to stop for this specific purpose in meter zones, but they are not permitted to " wait ".
The Ministry feels that, to accept the suggestion that goads vehicles should be allowed to wait in wharfside streets in a meter lone, without charge, would be to open the floodga.tes to a host of other "special cases" such as doctors' cars, commercial travellers' cars—and even goods vehicles in ordinary meter zones; these might all be considered to have special grounds for waiting free in meter zones, the argument runs.
The T.R.T.A. has maintained that there is no need for this principle to be invoked in the few cases where, on purely practical grounds, there can be seen to be a need for goods vehicles to wait without payment. The Association maintains that in the few specific dock and market areas of the country where goods vehicles need to wait their turn for loading or unloading, provision for them can be justified on purely practical grounds; and on those same practical grounds the pressures from other groups of users could be resisted, without breaching the principles involved.
The T.R.T.A. and the R.H.A. have both pressed for Upper Thames Street (in the City scheme) to be excluded from the parking meter zone. And, only on Monday of this week, the two associations went to the Ministry to press for more streets to be excluded from the quite separate Stepney iarking meter scheme, which will surround Spitalfields market. There had already been proposals for some streets to be excluded, to allow for their use by waiting lorries.
Already the exclusion of streets of this sort from meter zones has proved a practical solution to the problem in two cases. Covent Garden Market area was the first, and a network of streets there is excluded from the meter zone surrounding the market, so that lorries can wait Similarly, in the wharfside area of Bristol, for which goods-vehicle parking meters were proposed, streets have been excluded from the meter zone so that goods vehicles can wait to load or unload at the docks. There is a strong feeling in the operator associations that some similat solution could be adopted in the City; the argument that this opens the excluded streets to cars as well as goods vehicles i! considered to raise a theoretical rathei than 'a practical problem.
The Road Haulage Association remain! flatly opposed to the scheme and a spokesman told The Commercial Motm this week that as soon as the scheme i! officially published the R.H.A. will notif) interested bodies—with whom it ha! already been in contact on the matter— of the need to lodge an objection withir a specified period.
On Tuesday a meeting of the officer of the London and Home Countie Division of the T.R.T.A. expressed stronj disagreement with the City of Londor proposals. The Association was please( that the Minister had already ruled that in areas like this, provision must be mad( for goods vehicles to wait; but in thi face of that decision it was quite wroni to make a charge for the facility and h impose the 10s. excess charge for stayim over two hours: This implied that driver with, perhaps, 10 tons to unload having waited nearly two hours shoull move off to avoid committing an offence For many years the T.R.T,A, ha( worked in close co-operation with th, Ministry in London parking mete schemes, recognizing that loading am unloading must be controlled but insist ing that facilities for this necessary won! must be adequate. The need for good vehicles to wait in this case having bee recognized, the T.R.T.A. could see ni justification for charging for this faciiit and would oppose the proposa vigorously.