A freedom of information request has revealed that Kent County Council did not conduct any survey prior to its decision to implement a strict HGV parking ban in the county.
Sebastian Barrow, who has been leading the charge to have the HGV parking ban scrapped, wrote to the Kent County Council recently to make a freedom of information request so as to find out about any survey it had conducted before introducing the parking ban.
Mr Barrow presented the view that such a survey would have to have been carried out under “due diligence” before the case for the parking ban was presented to the Department for Transport.
The exact request was written as follows:
I am formally requesting, under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, to view a copy of the survey you would have carried out under „due diligence” before presenting your case to Dft for the TRO. I would assume this survey would have covered a number of issues including, The number of consistently available vacant HGV parking spaces throughout
Kent, Sussex, Surrey and Essex during the hours 17.00 to 09.00. Full details of the security arrangements. The welfare and hygiene facilities for the drivers. The charges applicable to each site for HGV parking.
In its response, Kent County Council simply said there was no requirement to conduct such a survey:
Under legal statute, there is no requirement for a ‘Due Diligence’ survey to be carried out prior to the introduction of any enforceable Traffic Regulation Order. Kent County Council carried out some informal information gathering prior to the design of the scheme but no official survey was required. General information about the multi-agency Kent Resilience Forum (KRF) commitment to working with the Department for Transport, Kent County Council, Kent Police, Port of Dover, Eurotunnel, Local Authorities and Highways England to prepare for any traffic disruption on Kent’s roads, following the end of the Brexit Transition Period can be found using the following links:
https://www.kentprepared.org.uk/end-of-transition-plans
https://www.kent.gov.uk/about-the-council/uk-has-left-the-european-union/travel-andtransport
A petition has been launched to try and get the ban scrapped. However, it needs roughly 5 times more signatures before a response from the government is legally required.
Photo credits: Paul Mercer (left) / publicdomainpictures.net (right)