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English: 26 December 2008 The London Borough of Camden had been correcting parking bay lines.

My photo shows a Controlled Parking Zone in Tavistock Street WC2 - near the corner of Catherine Street and close to Covent Garden. A wrongly-painted double white end line on a CPZ parking bay had been over-painted to comply with the Statutory Regulations. (Though the necessary terminal 'T-bar' was still missing from the double yellow lines.)

Elsewhere, R3cycl3r spotted Camden jet-washing incorrectly painted parking bay lines.

═════════════════════════════════════ In 2008, Haringey, my own borough, had many hundreds of streets with traffic lines and signs which did not comply with the law. During 2008, its Urban Environment Department suspended and/or corrected non-compliant yellow box junctions when former councillor Ray Dodds, Cllr Martin Newton and I pointed out errors.

Then on 6 October 2008, ex-councillor Brian Haley, then "cabinet" member responsible for Haringey's huge lines and signs mess, reported to the Scrutiny Committee that:

"A forward programme to review and amend lines and signs in CPZs that do not comply with the current regulations is underway. We are currently proposing a 12 month period for this work. A review is currently ongoing to assess the cost of work required."

On 2 December 2008 councillors for Tottenham Green ward got an email from the Parking Service, including this news.

"We are currently in the process of reviewing our parking lines and signs to ensure that all restrictions comply with the current regulations and and can be legally enforced."

"We have just completed a review of the Seven Sisters CPZ and will now be programming the amendments identified through the review. This will include changing all signage to make it clearer and amending the road markings to comply with the current standards. Work is programmed to commence on the 8 December and will continue until the end of January 2009. [ … ] "

At least on the surface, this was a significant and welcome outbreak of common sense. And a giant leap forward by Mr Haley and senior officers in the Urban Environment Department. At last, no bureau-babble about 'hybrid' lines and 'technicalities'. No Latin excuses about de minimis, when exactly the same faults are repeated in street after street after street across Haringey. And no nonsense about the council acting in "good faith" when it was clear that Brian Haley and his officers had known - and been told about - these problems for months.

Instead they finally admitted they got it wrong. Accepting not only that there are parking lines and signs which did not comply with the current Statutory regulations; but these may not be legally enforceable.

Sadly, neither Mr Haley nor his senior officers had the grace to apologise to residents. And there was a wriggle. The reference to "current standards" may suggest that some lines & signs did at first comply with Statutory regulations; but now do not - presumably implying the regulations have changed.

Well, that may be correct for pavement parking. But I don't know of any changes to the regulations since Haringey's contractors painted incorrect parking bay white lines; non-compliant yellow box junctions; and left-off the end lines ('T-bars') for hundreds of single and double yellow lines.

I may be wrong, of course. If so, I will immediately correct all my public lines posted on Flickr about this - and make a full apology.

On 23 December 2008 I wrote to Haringey's Urban Environment Department asking when non-compliant signs and lines outside Seven Sisters' CPZ would be corrected.