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West End Extra - LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Published: 1 August 2008

It would pay me to buy a car and get rid of the motorbike

• I AM a motorcycle rider and I live and work in Westminster.
Because I work in Westminster and walk to the office I only really use my motorcycle at weekends. The rest of the week it remains parked in a motorcycle bay near to my flat.
From early August 2008, Westminster City Council has declared they will be charging motorcycles £1.50 a day to park in a motorcycle bay.
The fact has not been widely advertised and yet the charging begins next week. Annoyingly, you can only use the rubbish “pay-by-phone” service.
I have no problem with paying for parking (motorcycles or otherwise). I am not one of the scrounging classes who feel everything should be free. There is a cost involved and I am perfectly happy to pay a fee if it’s justified.
However, I feel that maybe on this occasion Westminster have not really thought this through.
I say this because the new policy for parking motorbikes astoundingly means that it now costs more for a resident to park a motorcycle on a bay than it does for a resident to park a car in a resident’s bay!
In fact, if I get a resident’s parking permit for my bike, its cheaper and I can take up a space a car could use!
So, just to be clear, I am better off buying a car and parking it (taking up more space) than continuing to use my bike.
How green is that?
Well done Westminster!
GERRY TOWNSEND
Great Titchfield Street, W1

Send your letters to: The Letters Editor, West End Extra, 40 Camden Road, London, NW1 9DR or email to letters@westendextra.co.uk. The deadline for letters is midday Wednesday. The editor regrets that anonymous letters cannot be published, although names and addresses can be withheld.
Please include a full name, postal address and telephone number.
Letters may be edited for reasons of space.

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