When the original King Arthur wanted to park at Stonehenge, he simply rode up, got off his horse, tethered it to a rock, and went about his business of worshipping ancient stones.

Parking in latter-day Britain is, of course, a nightmare. Which is why, when the reincarnation of King Arthur wants to go and worship the grey wickets during the summer solstice, he now has to pay £15 to stow his Kawasaki motorbike.

Yet this week brings new hope for the 62-year-old self-proclaimed reincarnation – legal name King Arthur Pendragon; former name John Rothwell – with the news that Salisbury county court may be sympathetic to the divine parking rights of kings.

Pendragon has petitioned the court to revoke all fees, citing articles nine, 10, 11 and 14 of the European convention on human rights. As a neo-Druid, he argues that this “pay to pray” impinges on his free right of worship, and in an early victory, the court this week granted him a full day to hear his case.

This is not the first time the former Royal Hampshire Regiment parachutist has gone into battle for the liberty of the Henge. In the 90s, when English Heritage first brought in visitor charges, he campaigned for free access to the site, resulting in multiple trespass arrests. More recently, he called for the immediate reburial of the cremated remains of about 40 bodies found at a nearby archaeological site. And he has repeatedly stood for election in Salisbury, on a platform of green-ish libertarianism.

Pendragon was a happily mortgaged family man before he began joining biker gangs in the 1970s, rising to the top of the Gravediggers. In 1986, after an encounter with a book of Arthurian legend, he realised the similarities between his own life story – squaddie, biker, property owner – and that of the former English head honcho – mythic king, sword-puller – were unmistakable and overwhelming.

Now I’m not against taking the rap when I do something wrong, but when I worked in Local Government I always felt slightly ashamed of those Council’s that have
crossed the line of, whilst not deliberately issuing tickets for revenue reasons, certainly coming to rely significantly on car park fines and even car park income more generally. It seemed to me somehow demeaning that, something as important as a local authority, was forced to rely on these things as an income strategy.

The hard faced element of my character reflects that in view of the severe limits placed on the real discretion of authorities to raise their own revenues and take a whole number of service issues “by the horns” it is not surprising that it has come to this in a number of places.

It does worry me though, when authorities are constantly seen as enforcers and nit pickers, rather than acknowledged for the good and visionary things they do in many places – often because of restrictions to their discretion, on a shoestring.