Coincidence? You decide…
Before: how the faded yellow line outside Optilabs looked earlier this week
Within 24 hours of Inside Croydon reporting of a Waddon businessman’s year-long struggle to get the council simply to do their job by re-painting a faded bit of yellow line along the busy road outside his Stafford Road premises, and as if by magic… the council painting crew arrived and did what was needed.
It was on Wednesday that Inside Croydon reported how, on a short stretch of Stafford Road, next to the notoriously congested and dangerous Fiveways junction in Waddon, the owners of Optilabs were at their wits’ end after 12 months of dutifully making polite, repeat requests of the council’s roads department for a little dab of paint to ensure that the road markings are clear and unambiguous for everyone.
Optilabs depends on its customers being able to access the small car park in front of their premises. But with the yellow line on Stafford Road so badly worn, cars would often park on the road in front and block their access.
After: the same stretch of Stafford Road this morning, after a dab of yellow paint from the council
Traffic wardens didn’t want to know: penalty tickets were not being issued in case drivers, quite reasonably, claimed on apppeal that there was no yellow line restriction on that bit of road because there was no visible yellow line.
Even with the ever-diligent Waddon ward councillor, Robert Canning, on the case, council staff seemed indifferent.
Promises from council staff to get the lines re-painted before the end of July this year came and went, with not a drop of canary-coloured paint to be seen.
And then, Optilabs’ Tony Kerr was in contact again, having witnessed the changed scene outside his firm’s offices.
“Very surprisingly the yellow lines were painted yesterday morning,” he wrote.
“Probably a coincidence. Now hopefully the parking regulations will be enforced.”
Meanwhile, Councillor Canning was last seen heading off towards Fisher’s Folly, apparently to speak to the relevant council department to make sure the traffic wardens start to visit that stretch of Stafford Road again.
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