Parking watchdog's demands confuse disabled parkers

Camden Council is committed to ensuring every disabled resident who needs to park near their home can do so. That s why we offer a dedicated disabled badge parking service. Until recently we clearly marked all our dedicated disabled parking bays with sig

Camden Council is committed to ensuring every disabled resident who needs to park near their home can do so. That's why we offer a dedicated disabled badge parking service.

Until recently we clearly marked all our dedicated disabled parking bays with signs to set out the specific permit holder who could park there and also painted the bay with a large marking to clearly identify that it was for disabled permit holder only.

We know these markings worked well to protect these spaces for those residents who need them most. However the parking adjudications service (PATAS) ruled against us and said they were not compliant with traffic regulations.

Having turned down our appeal we now have to remove the ground legend markings.

We don't think this provides enough clarity for out residents - as your article (Disabled man hit by parking 'shambles' H&H July 23) highlights.

We are now applying to the Department for Transport to get permission for the additional road markings. We believe they help make it as clear as possible to drivers that these bays are for the sole use of the designated permit holder and prevent misuse.

In the meantime any disabled badge holders having problems with people parking in their dedicated bay should contact Camden Council's Parking Services on 0207 974 4646 so that we can take the appropriate enforcement action.

Cllr Chris Knight

Executive Member for Environment

Camden Council

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