Wansteadium reader Michael Proulx got really irritated when he found that Streetcar had withdrawn its vehicles from Wanstead. They had previously had cars parked in Sylvan Road, Woodbine Place and near Wanstead House, and allowed customers to go and pick them up and drive them away. Dedicated parking spaces were allocated to them. Yet he recently found that the cars had been removed, and the nearest site for pick-up was in Leytonstone.
So he wrote to the firm asking why. This is the reply he got:
Dear Michael
Thank you for your email concerning the availability of vehicles in your area.
Unfortunately we have had to withdraw the vehicles from Snaresbrook and Wanstead areas due to a very high volume of attempted break-ins and vandalism with the vehicles. We needed to withdraw these as we could not ensure their safety going forward.
We are currently liaising with the local police to find a way to get around this problem, and we are looking to find secured, off-street parking for vehicles to be placed. This is a lengthy process, so please accept my apologies for the delay whilst we get the issue sorted. We hope to have new vehicles in place soon.
The firm also offered him three months’ rental for free, but since he can’t use it, it doesn’t make a lot of difference.
As Wansteadium reported yesterday, in December 2010 there were 37 instances of vehicle crime (thefts from or of a vehicle, or interference with it) in Wanstead and Snaresbrook, though a detailed breakdown shows much the problem is not as extreme as that: Wanstead’s residential streets had just a handful of reported offences.
OK – so vehicles withdrawn from Wanstead and Snaresbrook to Leytonstone for er….safety reasons?
If you lived in Wanstead and owned a vehicle that was parked in Hounslow, I’m pretty sure you’d move it if there was a spate of vehicle-related crimes in that area. And particularly if you relied in the vehicle as a source of income.
So the actions of Streetcar have inconvenienced someone. Itd be even more inconvenient if you’d gone to the car and found it broken into or sitting on bricks.
We live in a world where things inconvenience us all the time. There’s little we can do about it except adapt. Can I do anything about the delays on the central line in the morning? No, I have to wait them out or adapt my journey.