Residents Parking 

Dear Editor,

Last week I was in London and, as a dutiful citizen – I am always careful to check what to pay for travelling up to the Big Smoke from the shires – I settled the myriad of Khan traffic levies before I left.

My meeting was in an area of the capital which I know jolly well. So, I thought I knew where I could park. However, when I arrived in town, the parking spaces I habitually use had been converted into no go spaces – classified now as ‘resident parking’ spots.

Happily, I was early for my meeting so loitered in one of these empty spots in order to Google where else I could park my 4X4. Ultimately I found a space down the road and the extra walk to my meeting location was not too strenuous despite having more titanium than Sia in my right leg.

Why I am writing to you is this: every person I saw leaving the block of flats in the area where I used to park was as white as me, and it occurred to me that ‘Residents Parking’ as a concept is intrinsically passé.

Where, in the spirit of diversity, are the non-white spaces? What about the spaces for trans people? Or elderly, disabled Nepalese folk? Should we not be putting parking spaces on a rota so that minorities, self-identifying types (especially those who identify as ‘they’), furries and those fond of spandex onesies get a chance to park? Why are we wasting spaces for privileged home owners when homeless people may wish to park their trolleys there? Dare I say that those of us with titanium pegs also merit time on the rota?

It gets worse…

For the more I have dwelt on this subject, the more I have appreciated that ‘Residents Parking’ is neocolonialism of the worst kind. While taxis are always black and waiters in Indian restaurants are almost always from Bangladesh, car drivers in London are more likely to be white. Surely you can see the injustice?

Unquestionably, hardworking diversity officers would agree with me that the London Mayoralty is failing citizens by missing out on the interminable scope of intersectional opportunity.

The way that Mayor Khan is interpreting Foucault and Lyotard is so surface as to be craven. The circular firing squad that critical theory is designed to culminate in – maximum chagrin – shall be such an exclusive moment in London as to go off with an unacceptable whimper. Capitalism may even live on.

Khan is failing us all.

Yours sincerely,

Dom Wightman

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