Dear Spurtle,
I’m writing to report a mysterious occurrence on Brandon Terrace.
I'm a long-time resident of this locale and, for the last 20 years or so, have had a resident’s parking permit for Zone 6.
When the lockdown liberalisation of parking controls came to an end, Brandon Terrace’s mix of parking-permit and pay-and-display spaces were unified into combined places where anyone could park as long as they had either a permit or a ticket. They even changed the signs to reflect this change, and the space on the opposite side to the shops and tenements, between the bus stop and the traffic lights, had ta new sign put up in June 2021 (see below).
Having happily parked there ever since, I was surprised to find a parking ticket on the car last week. Further investigation showed that, in a mysterious turn of events, the sign has transformed itself and now states that it is in Zone 5a (see below).
Having appealed the ticket, I’m waiting to hear back, but I’m mystified how it can be possible for the Council to have made this change apparently without any notice.
Does this mean that the parking space has been in a strange state of seeming to be one thing while actually being another and its identity crisis has now been resolved?
Is it facing an existential crisis, unable to know definitively which zone it belongs in, or is it perhaps a liminal parking space?
Most importantly, from a practical point of view, which sign is right?
Nicholas Bone
Brandon Terrace
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