Northern Rail have banned motorcycles from the station car park.
Motorcycle riders have effectively been banned from a popular meeting spot in the Yorkshire town of Whitby, due to their gatherings not being permitted.
The meeting spot is a cafe, called the Whistlestop, at the Whitby railway station, which is owned by Northern Rail and a popular meeting place for bikers. However, a ban on motorcycle parking in the station’s car park means that bikers are now effectively prohibited from meeting there, or even just parking at the station to catch a train.
On the face of it, there were problems caused by mass gatherings disrupting parking for rail users. This could have been managed in an intelligent manner. Even if that meant motorcycles pay for a bay if they are parked in it. But, no, the bureaucrats responsible have gone down the route of a full ban on a specific type of vehicle – which is what I’ve come to expect from the intellectually challenged bureaucrats in the public sector. So, if you commute from Whitby and use a motorcycle to get to and from the station, you are likely to get hit with a £50 penalty charge.
There’s a number of issues here. This kind of blanket discrimination is unreasonable. Ergo, if it was challenged in a court, it would likely fail. What it might take is for one or more riders to go into the car park, park in the marked motorcycle bay (at the time of writing this is still there) and see what happens. Northern Rail are quoting the railway bylaws. However, when asked by one correspondent, exactly which bylaw, they declined to answer. I suspect that no bylaw is being broken. If the vehicle is legally allowed on the road, there is no justification for preventing it entering railway property. The responses to queries from motorcycling railway users has been pitiful in that they provide the usual prevarication and non-answer. This is simply not good enough.
Another matter here, is that this is not private property. Northern Rail is in public hands. It is paid for by the taxpayer – i.e. the very people they are banning.
The Motorcycle Action Group are playing the long game with this one, pursuing the political route before arranging any protest action. This is fair enough. If they can get the government to step in and give Northern Rail a good hard slap, then that is all dandy. If not, then test cases are needed.
Just a personal note here. I used to use my bike when I was on-call. Incidents at or near stations meant that I would park my bike in the station car park and walk to site. If I was doing this in the Whitby area today, I would still do exactly that. If they tried a penalty notice on me, they would meet vigorous resistance and I’d take it all the way. I don’t like bullies and have a zero tolerance approach to dealing with them. And that is what this is – bullying and discrimination from a publicly owned body, that is ultimately responsible to the people it is bullying.
Edit – literally just posted this and Stuart Fillingham tells us that Northern Rail have capitulated.
The bullies caved the second that they got some push back. Surprising that the parking bays were still there. Par for the course would have had them spending tax payers money to paint out the bike bays and then painting them back in a few days later. I saw in the comments a story about a biker cafe that changed hands, banned the bikers and then went out of business.
So fed up with these little Hitler’s making shit up as they go along, like the police and local councils too.
Tell em the feck off, and seeing as you are already in the carpark, an offer of fisticuffs can lead to all sorts of fun.
This is pretty much what happened. Quite apart from MAG threatening a protest, which would have involved filling the car park with bikes in direct contravention of the new rules, and be entirely unenforceable due to numbers, there were enough individuals kicking up and it would only have taken one of them to see it through to court action for the ban to fall apart as it fails the ‘man on the Clapham omnibus’ test.
It takes a complete disconnect with reality to even think that this would fly, but we have people in positions of authority who really do think like that. Civil disobedience simply does not occur to them until his hits them in the face.
Meanwhile the same insanity of fining car makers for not selling enough EVs is going to be applied to manufacturers of gas boilers if they fail to sell enough heat pumps. I would have thought that a mass refusal to pay up would be needed to put a stop to this kind of crap.
I suppose it will take a critical mass.
At least with this we are in control. If a manufacturer stops making ICE cars than I’ll move on to another. I’m not brand conscious and I suspect most people are like that. The manufacturers will feed back or go out of business.
At least until we stop voting these cretins in. Which I thought would happen by now but we are thicker than I thought.
The wife and I stayed at a lovely country pub the other night. I stepped outside for some air and was immediately drawn to an irritating humming sound coming from the houses across the road, maybe 150ft away. I’m pretty sure this was a heat pump – and only one of them. If this is the new standard for all homes the noise will be unbearable, especially in rows of terrace housing! Just like mass adoption of EVs, it’s not gonna happen.