Grrrrrrrrr I went back to my bike at lunchtime to find it had been ticketed by a parking cnut. The road in question is Baltic Street, off Goswell Road EC1, in case any of you know it, and I've been parking there for 14 months without problem until now (not that that means anything). The road is closed off to traffic by two lines of bollards, roughly 15ft apart, but cycle lanes continue through, leaving a space in between where I and a few other bikes have been parking. There are single yellow lines next to the pavement, but no other markings in the bollarded-off area, so it's not specifically designated as a parking bay. My ticket states "Contravention 26: vehicle parked more than 50cm from the kerb and not within a designated parking place", so I'm inferring that the Council still consider the area to be road, despite deliberately closing it to traffic. So: a) is the area really still a road, despite the bollards? b) if it's not a road, does an absence of parking markings/restrictions mean that you can or can't park there? c) on what grounds can I appeal, and am I likely to get anywhere? They've also repainted the lines around the bike bay further down the road _slightly_ smaller than they were before. This entire business is really winding me up - I can't think of a single reason for this other than increasing revenue. Cnuts.
