Cartoon: John Sadler

• FOR years I have tried to get the council to use its parking control staff to prevent coaches spending all day sitting at the foot of Primrose Hill, parking illegally on Prince Albert Road, impeding the passage of the 274 bus and other larger vehicles, particularly if the opposite side of the road, controlled by Westmin­ster, was also parked with coaches.

I was told that, since they are allowed 20 minutes to drop off and to pick up their passengers, nothing could be done.

It was, however, clear that they sat there all day, avoiding paying for a coach park such as that at the zoo, often sleeping on the back seat, making it obvious that they were not “dropping off” passengers prior to driving away.

I drove along the foot of Primrose Hill on Wednesday, May 17, and Camden’s side of Prince Albert Road was filled with coaches the whole length of the road from the bus stop after St Edmunds Terrace to the corner of Albert Terrace.

On the Westminster side there was one coach, but there was also one of their traffic patrol officials who was book­ing the coach and phon­ing in to Westminster.

Why is it that Westminster has virtually stopped coach parking, and is quick to deal with the odd infringement, even though this stretch of road is at the extremity of that borough, whereas Camden, despite various concerted campaigns by residents over many years, seems powerless to act, even though its parking staff must surely patrol that road?

Since I reported this situation on a local email network on Wednesday, saying that I was finally alerting the New Journal by writing this letter, one local resident has confronted coach drivers who were parked there illegally, untroubled by parking control, further polluting our air by running their engines, and discovering one driver even to be cooking in the luggage hold, as the coach sat there.

Clearly he was not expecting to be issued with a parking penalty.

LORNA FOWLER
Primrose Hill, NW1