There was, buried in the past decade and a half of stupidity, a half decent idea. The idea of a controlled parking zone was, to begin with, a seemingly good way to stop people being unable to use their own streets to park in because other people were using it as a base for commuting.

Of course, like every rare good idea that government has had, it became fucked up. Instead of being used to control parking in small, troubled areas, huge swathes of towns are being declared as special zones. Often for no good reason, and with no actual consultation. For example, round the corner from our flat (which has been in a CPZ for a long time) they’ve extended another zone to meet this one. Meaning that there isn’t actually a street in about 300 yards that you can park in without a permit. Oh, and when they brought it in, they had the signs up and the road markings changed long before the period of supposed consultation ended. So the council were really open minded about it. Honest.

A little further away, and even further from anywhere that has a parking problem, the same council are at it again. But someone seems to have noticed.

I’ll be keeping an eye on this one…