SIX wrongly marked box junctions are going to be taken off the streets after a U-turn by Ealing Council.

Refunds are going to be handed out on the junctions to anyone who has paid a ticket issued since last Thursday, October 30, the day after the council was ordered to hand £750 in costs to a bus company it had repeatedly fined.

Three of the junctions in South Road, Southall, at St Joseph’s Drive, Cambridge Road and Hamilton Road, another is in Southall High Street junction with Avenue Road, in Ealing the markings on the Broadway at the junction with the Mall will also be removed, and the Uxbridge Road junction with Lower Boston Road, in Hanwell.

Last Wednesday the council was ordered to pay costs to First United Busways for 17 tickets which were overturned by a parking adjudicator on appeal. The decision followed several others by adjudicators which said the junctions in South Road were wrongly marked.

Adjudicator Gerald Styles told the council representative: “I think the council has got it wrong.

“I am awarding costs on the grounds the council has been wholly unreasonable. It is the disregard of the earlier decisions from which consideration has to flow.”

Cabinet Member for Customer and Community Services, Councillor Phil Taylor, said: “Following a meeting with the Department for Transport in June we understood that double width yellow boxes could be placed at the T-junctions, as long as there was sufficient traffic flow in the area. We provided additional data and fully expected the DfT to confirm they were happy. Now eight months after we originally approached them, they appear to be suggesting this is not the case, but have still failed to provide us with a report setting out their position, despite repeated requests. “It is ridiculous that it has taken the Government department which sets the rules so many months to interpret its own manual and we still have not received a definitive response. This just underlines how unclear the regulations are.”

What do you think? Should the council have removed the box junctions earlier? Leave your comments below.