Resident shocked to see Barnet mayor’s chauffeur-driven Mercedes parked in bus stop

Barnet Council has come down hard on residents for improper parking in recent years.

But it appears the same rules do not apply to the borough’s mayor, whose chauffeur-driven Mercedes was snapped parked neatly inside the confines of a Temple Fortune bus stop recently.

Richard Wiseman, chairman of Hampstead Garden Suburb Trust, could not believe his eyes when Cllr Melvin Cohen’s car pulled up in the restricted bay along Finchley Road as the mayor opened a new restaurant on the street earlier this month.

“It seems that the mayor of Barnet has decided that parking restrictions in the borough should not apply to his chauffeur-driven Mercedes,” said Mr Wiseman.

“Meanwhile, the rest of us have to put up with some of the most penal policies and charges in London.”

Cllr Cohen, a Conservative councillor in Golders Green, had his excuses prepared when Heathman contacted him about the incident.

He said: “They stopped for a couple of minutes to pick me up because there was nowhere else to park outside a restaurant I had opened earlier in the day. Finchley Road was totally full.”

But he conceded: “Perhaps it shouldn’t have been parked there but there was nowhere else to park. I came out, jumped in the car and off we went.”