Camden News: Parking | Best value | Traffic warden | hot spot | Town Hall | Silver BMW

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Camden News - by SIMON WROE
Published: 21 August 2008

The best value parking in town?

IT is a traffic warden hotspot where shop owners and residents are regularly slapped with tickets for running a few minutes over on the meter.
But while others are fined, a Town Hall bungle allowed this silver BMW parked on South End Road in Hampstead to dodge the wardens’ wrath for five weeks. The mistake was only realised when the New Journal enquired about the car.
Parking chiefs said an “administration error” had let the car sit in a pay and display bay, gathering leaves and rubbish through its open sunroof, for 35 days on the same one-day ticket. Illegally parked cars are usually towed after 24 hours.
Arvind Mystry, owner of the Belsize Stationers shop opposite, knows the efficiency of the area’s wardens all too well.
“I don’t understand how this can happen,” he said. “I’ve been ticketed five times over the last two years when I was unloading stuff from my car and I ran over by a few minutes. All of the shopkeepers here have similar stories.”
A council spokesman said: “Normally a vehicle that is illegally parked in either a residents’ or pay and display parking bay for more than 24 hours would be towed away. In this case, an administrative error meant the car wasn’t removed until August 4, but the owner will still be liable for the tickets issued and the removal fee.

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