You know, I don't believe the local council actually own the roads. The householders on either side of the road do, which is why they are allowed to dig a basement up to the centre line of any outside road. As our elected and paid for (civil) servants we have given the council the the duty to keep them in good repair and sufficiently unobstructed to allow us to use them. Hounslow council, like all councils, regularly gets a bit beyond itself with its own self importance. The council is only there to run the schools, collect the rubbish, clean and repair the streets and make sure no one builds whopping great ugly buildings nearby. Anything else they do is above and beyond what we, the public that pay their wages, have actually asked of them. Being able to park close to your home should be a natural public right, and if this can only be enforced by restricted residents parking then the council should make sure it does not impose an unnecessary burden on the residents. In other words it should only cost us a nominal fee to cover the cost of one person printing and posting the permits. That registering a second car for a permit costs £100, ostensibly to discourage people having 2 car families, instead of less than the £65 for the first car just shows the council is trying to impose the ideas of a few onto the many. Why do we even call them Councillors? It's just a title they made up for themselves so I'd prefer it if we all called them civil servants, just to remind them they do not provide council, but do provide service.
Lorne Gifford ● 4578d