Westminster Council parking policies cause London gridlock
Hundreds of angry scooter and motorbike bike riders staged a flash protest in Trafalger Square today. Riders were protesting at Westminster Councils introduction of a tax levied against them to park on the streets.
Despite the council receiving the largest number of objections in it’s history, the Tory dominated council pushed through it’s parking tax, going against Conservative Party policy.
The demonstration was arranged through text messages, with riders being informed of the meeting point only minutes before the demo.
Initially riders gathered on a traffic island in front of Nelsons Column, which attracted the attention of a mounted policeman who told riders that it was not a car park. To which one rider pointed out that they were not cars, but bikes.
Once sufficient numbers of riders had arrived, they took to the road, explaining that if Westminster Council are going to treat them just like cars, then they will behave like cars. Within just a few minutes central London was brought to a standstill, with busses, cars and trucks stretching back as far as the eye could see in every direction.
Riders vowed to keep protesting for as long as politicians continue to ignore them.
We leave you with a selection of photos from today’s protest, and will be following up next week with more.
That bloody R.A.T.S bike is always in the wrong place
Angry undercover police tries and fails to get by.
Lorry in too much of a hurry get stuck
Is that an Eagle?
chalkley poster
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Today a new improved kind of demo was born, this is just the start, there is much more and much better to come, the whole of London is behind us now, car drivers, bus drivers, lorry drivers, taxis drivers, retailers, theatres, the lot !
Watch out Westminster, public anger is growing at an alarming rate, and there is a tsunami of protest comming your way. This will not look good comes the elections……
the public is fed up with the parking racket in Westminster city council, dishonesty, cheating, and lying, poeple are not blind any more.
Today’s protest was marvellous. Motorcycles, mopeds and scooters came out of nowhere and gridlocked the City of Westminster (probably had side effects in other parts of London too). We need to have more of these kind of protests. Keeping the meeting point secret till the last minute and then sending SMS text messages is genius. A great way to cause mayhem as the authorities have no way to plan ahead as they have no idea where we will be until it’s too late. More of these bike parking demo’s please!
We did have all the car drivers behind us. However, since they were caught literally behind us I think they may not be too happy. It was fun watching the copper get irate enough to drive up the pavement though
More protests please!
Thats me and Geoff in the photo with the home made “No Tax’ flag. I think it was great what we did, and most of the tourists and people were behind us (literally!). We need more protests like this and I really think we are making progress. This tax is not here to stay.