§ 55. Mr. BURNETTasked the Home Secretary whether he will, in order to restore Old Quebec Street and Bryanston Street as public highways for driving and foot traffic, request the police to direct vehicles calling at the hotels, flats, and stores fronting to Oxford Street to use Oxford Street daily after 10 a.m. as standing space or, alternatively, to notify the owners of the hotels, flats, and stores in Oxford Street that they must provide their own garage space for customers and tradesmen, in order to abate the nuisance caused by depriving the general public of their rights to the public highway?
§ Sir J. GILMOURThe Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis informs me 381 that the police have instructions not to allow vehicles to stand in the streets referred to in such manner as to render passage impracticable. The suggestion that waiting vehicles should be directed to Oxford Street would not only involve an infringement of the regulations made by my hon. Friend the Minister of Transport, which prohibit waiting in Oxford Street between 12 noon and 7 p.m., but would make conditions in the neighbourhood worse and might even result in a complete stoppage of the traffic in Oxford Street itself. As regards the alternative suggestion made by my hon. Friend, there is no power to require frontagers be provide garage accommodation, but it is most desirable that drivers should make full use of existing garages and, in this particular neighbourhood, there is garage accommodation close at hand.