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My parking fine cast shadow over street’s pear tree harvest
• I WAS interested to read your recent articles about the pear trees in St John’s Villas (Harvest time for the pear trees that escaped the axe, September 25). I live in the same house as Bridget Butt, who is a big campaigner for the trees.
Sadly, though, all was not happiness and light. The council failed to give its promised 14 days’ notice for parking bay suspensions, giving only nine days instead, and I was caught out by being on holiday in France and received a parking ticket. I came home having no idea why on earth I would have been issued with a parking fine. Bridget said that she pleaded with the parking attendant to not issue the ticket, but they wouldn’t listen. I have appealed to the council and they have turned down my appeal.
Whether you have sympathy with that little story or not, there is a valid issue here in that the council fails to give sufficient notice for residents to be able to remove their cars from parking bays and so avoid parking fines.
This sounds like a racket to me. There seems to be nothing in the law to stop councils issuing overnight suspensions and then sending round the parking attendants and turning down the appeals. That’s a nice little earner for them and we, the public, have no course of redress. How can that be right?
I suspect that there are no shortage of aggrieved residents.
Councillors should take note because it is they who take the brunt at election time by being voted out of office by victims of unfair parking fines. It would seem that councillors have failed to learn from the last election outcome. Surely the council should be helping its residents, not attacking them.
Fiona Hayes
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