Battle of The Egos

It was said that President Reagan always had a tame reporter at his weekly press conferences. So when the White House Press Corps were grilling him about some controversial topic and especially when the President was digging him self a hole, up would pop this reporter and ask the President something like “did you watch TV last night Mr President? Did you like that new drama series Mr President? .The President would then deliver a monologue and the heat was off and everyone would drift away.

It was a bit like that last night.

There was an almighty row about parking problems in streets running off Golders Green Road. The residents had turned up in force; it was a real family affair with mums dads and children all adding to the real strength of feeling.

Simply put the residents wanted a CPZ. They described a parking nightmare. One resident described the situation as “a battle of egos” between competing motorists. Another resident offered to lend the Council the cash to implement a CPZ, on the proviso they paid him back once they had collected the forty pounds from residents for the permits. Another suggestion was to suspend the whole of the Golders Green controlled Parking Zone so as to have a level playing field.

Well feelings were running high and the Residents did not appear convinced that the Council was going to do any thing fairly soon to sort this out. By this time we had already eaten into the first hour and we were only on the second agenda item. I could see that there were other residents impatiently sharpening their knives for their turn to have a go on a variety of other topics.

At this point the Chairman brought the discussion to an end and moved onto the next item. This is the Reagan moment. The item was a slide show presentation” Core Strategy – Publication Stage and Development Management Policies Preferred Approach” We were told this was the Council’s continuing Process of Engagement. Unfortunately I had another engagement and had to leave soon after.

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