For the past month or so a Cement Mixer belonging to the Hope Construction Company has been parked overnight and over the weekends on the pavement on the road that leads up to my house.  The pavement is completely blocked by this cement mixer and it obstructs the flow of traffic.  Yet there is it, night after night, left by the person who drives it, who must obviously live in the neighbourhood.

What should I do?  The sight of it is awful, sitting there like an affront to notions of community and neighbourliness.  I find the thought of someone parking there thinking to himself (I’m assuming it’s a he) of how clever he’s been in saving himself the bother of driving back to the compound at the end of his shift to pick up his car and instead just driving straight back home in this cement mixer quite shocking.  I’m also shocked by his lack of worry.  I seem to worry a great deal about things like not parking in the wrong place, not dropping people off and blocking the road whilst doing so, not turning the wrong way down a one way street.  And here’s someone who doesn’t seem to care at all.

So I decide to do something about it.  I email the company; No response.  I email the Council, and after a delay of a couple of weeks I get a reply telling me they can do nothing about it and I should contact the police, this in spite of the fact that they’ve had to repair the very same pavement in the past week that this mixer parks on.  I finally report the matter to the police who tell me that they will take action.

I get up this morning to find a note from the police pushed through the letter box telling me to ring them about this matter.  When I do so a nice PCSO tells me that she came last night to have a look at the problem…and the cement mixer wasn’t there!  The one night the police come to check is the one night the driver decides for whatever reason NOT to park on the pavement! There’s nothing now that they can do!  Ah well…..