CAMPAIGNING residents are celebrating after a council committee recommended that parking fines given to drivers in narrow streets be quashed and the policy changed.
Councillors on the Hendon Area Sub-Committee, including three Conservatives, were cheered by a packed public gallery as they said residents should be allowed to park on pavements in narrow roads.
Three small residential roads in Colindale had been targeted in a clampdown by parking attendants, who have given drivers £50 fines for parking on the kerb outside their own homes – despite them doing it for over 40 years.
But the committee, which included Tories Joan Scannell, Sury Khatri and Brian Gordon, agreed this was unfair, with Cllr Scannell saying the policy “was putting lives in danger”.
The councillors unanimously recommended Labour councillor Geoff Johnson's proposal to the cabinet that all roads in Barnet that have the problem should be given a special exemption, with fines given so far refunded.
Woodfield Avenue resident Nick Poullora, who is leading the campaign with neighbour Rachel Zegerman, said he was delighted with the decision but that it was only the first step to reversing the policy.
He said: “This has given us some hope that there is some common sense in Barnet Council.
“People on this street have lived here for 50 years and in that time the council actually tarmacked over the grass verge to allow residents to park as it is such a narrow road.
“The consequences of the council not agreeing with our proposals will be catastrophic.”
Cllr Johnson told the committee that when cars double parked on the streets there was a gap of two metres for vehicles to pass through, less than the three and a half metres stipulated by the London Fire Brigade.
The committee's recommendations will now go before the council's cabinet meeting next month, where residents will hand in a petition with over 100 signatories from only three streets.
Mr Poullora said that the residents would turn up in numbers to make sure the councillor responsible for parking, Brian Coleman, knew how strongly drivers felt about the issue.
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