Okay, I'm going to have to accept you are going to stick to your insistence that sticking ANPR cameras all over the backstreets of Ealing is less totalitarian than not doing so.Other councils have introduced them and they would effectively reduce rat-running in many of the current LTNs without requiring residents to drive round in circles through their neighbourhood. They seem to be allowed under the current government guidelines even though these changes are meant to be temporary.Apart from the civil liberties issue of installing monitoring cameras in residential areas, they won't be a painless solution. As with CPZs, what initially sounds like a boon to residents will inevitably cause problems. Forgetting to register a new car, an unexpected visitor, a wrong turn from one zone to another, taxis being unwilling to pick up and bureaucratic snafus will mean that the restrictions will, for many, be worse than the original problem.However, the cameras by this stage will be generating a revenue stream and this will mostly be coming from residents. No local authority ever voluntarily gives up something that is generating cash for them so, no matter how unpopular they become, they will be here to stay.Ealing has chosen not to use revenue generating cameras to support their LTNs. I know you are congenitally unable to give them credit for anything but this does suggest that they genuinely believed they would work. The evidence so far suggests they are not but there is also evidence from boroughs where ANPR cameras are being used of serious problems. The difference will be that the councils using cameras will have a strong vested interest in maintaining schemes. It looks inevitable now that Ealing will bow to pressure and scrap all or most of these schemes around the end of the year at the latest.
Andy Jones ● 1683d