Parking on an unadopted highway

I-LOV-MONEY

For years I have been able to park on a service road, and small car park. Suddenly last year a PPC put up signs that restricted parking (free) to two hours.

I queried this with the local Council (L B Barnet) and received this reply -

The Council owns, according to our records, the land shown on the attached 2007 Land Registry title plan. I can also confirm, to our knowledge, that the title has not been sold or transferred to any third party. In order to introduce controlled parking it was not necessary for this decision to be referred to a Council meeting or Committee for approval as the approval of this proposal falls within the Council's officers' delegated authority.

As these pieces of land do not fall within an adopted highway the Council is not obliged to any legislative frame work pertaining to these areas. The shop frontage tenants were consulted and this agreement looks to alleviate the difficulties in parking in front of the shops and the consequent attempt to increase the custom on the parade which has been adversely affected by parking in the slip road and car park. To this end the Council granted a parking arrangement with MET Parking Services Ltd on a fixed term basis.

Personally I find this useful as I can park there, do my shopping in Tesco around the corner and meet my wife for lunch within the 2 hours ! On the slight negative side my wife used to park there when she went to her office.

Incidentally I am actually is dispute with MET Parking Services, because they believe where I actually parked on the service area was causing an obstruction. I do not believe I was, as another vehicle can pass without difficulty (the road is only wide enough for one direction of vehicles, but it is not a one-way street). Rather go through a protracted argument with them, I have ignored their invoices. Ignored their debt collection agency letters. Ignored their Solicitor's letters. Told them "no comment" when they phoned me. I suspect the end must be near. Last communication from Solicitor was 24 May.