The Scoop

Barnet's drivers get run over by councillor Coleman

Darryl Chamberlain | Wednesday 2 February, 2011 17:43

Drivers in Barnet are feeling sore after being called “hysterical” for protesting about a doubling in the cost of parking permits.

Barnet Council’s environment chief – as well as Barnet and Camden assembly member – Brian Coleman is Boris Johnson’s fire authority chairman in his day job, where he has won friends and influenced people by threatening to sack all 5,500 of the capital’s firefighters.

Our photo shows him relaxing after, or maybe during, a hard day’s toil serving Londoners.

At a council meeting on his home turf, he angered locals by unveiling plans to increase the cost of Barnet’s parking permits from £42 to £100, as well as scrapping free parking bays and hiking up the cost of pay-and-display fees.

According to the Evening Standard, he garnished his announcement with these warm words: “We are proposing to increase parking charges to less than £2 per week, less than the price of a cup of coffee. We will not entertain this sort of nonsense from hysterical, over-the-top residents.”

He also told residents of posh Hampstead Garden Suburb they could easily afford the extra cost, boasting he “never knowingly undercharged” on car parking vouchers.

Barnet’s by no means the only council hiking up parking charges, with all London’s boroughs grappling with slashed budgets.

But it may well be the only one where a senior councillor can get away with verbally attacking those who protest. A few of his town hall colleagues across the capital may well be casting envious looks in his direction.

As for the drivers of Barnet, they can join a long list of people the good councillor for Totteridge ward has taken on.

They include London’s firefighters and their union, West End theatres and theatre-goers, anyone who wants to see his expenses, Britain’s Olympic gold medallists, and pesky bloggers.

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