As a resident of Thames Ditton for many decades, I am decidedly in favour of a comprehensive scheme of residents' parking throughout the village. If we have it in one place then it will have to spread everywhere or else parking problems will just be moved along a road or two.
There are some people who, unlike myself, have absolutely no right to park on the public road and the sooner we get rid of them the better. Islanders for example shut themselves off from Thames Ditton by a locked portcullis and they knew when they bought their houses that there was nowhere to park. How would they react if we started parking our boats along their Island moorings? Church Walk is full of old people who shouldn't be driving at all. There are too many office workers in Thames Ditton and I am tired of queuing in our local shops while they buy their dreary sandwiches. Shoppers are also a pestiferous nuisance especially when they park in the George and Dragon where I like to leave my Mercedes while enjoying a few lunchtime malts. We would do better to convert the shops into housing. My nephew the property developer is prepared to step in to help do this if nobody else can be found.
Then there are the mothers who use a car to drop off and collect their children from school. These indulgent mothers should not be allowed to breed. This is the reason why we have so many obese children today. They will only grow up to be badly dressed and impudent students at Esher College, another nest of iniquity whose inmates should be deprived of any right to park nearby, and indeed should not be allowed to drive a car until they are over 30.
As for commuters, words fail me. Let them pay for the privilege of working, if they have to. We should make absolutely no provision for people to park anywhere near to the station and indeed if the station were to close altogether then our lovely village would be a much quieter place.
I should make it clear that I am firmly opposed to making Thames Ditton a traffic free zone as some idiot suggested. I like to drive around and want to have as few impediments to that as possible. To enable me to do this faster, I do think the speed bumps should be removed, preferably by teenagers from the Longmead Estate doing community labour under their ASBOs.
I stress that I am a very tolerant person. I have not, you notice, called for all parkers under the age of 60 to be shot or for those too poor to afford a house with a garage and off-street parking to be transported to Australia. Although I could easily have done so when roused.
I demand that the Residents' Association immediately implements my views. I know they are shared by many others, as they nod when I pass them in the street. Otherwise I shall withdraw my vote in the next elections in favour of the Ditton Independence Party (DIP) of which I am the founder member and I may say not the sole one.
Fortescue-Smythe
-----------------------------------------------
The above is reprinted from a stimulating contribution to the website forum on parking. Alas we were unable to locate the author, who does not appear in our list of members who have paid their subscription this year, to secure permission. The views expressed are entirely the author's own.