Barry Stamps Political Diary

I know the Council is short of cash, but trying to charge a disable motorist £70 because she placed her blue disabled parking badge upside down is beyond a joke.

A couple of days before Christmas I got a telephone call from a local lady who was extremely worried she had got a parking ticket while shopping in Sainsbury’s. It appeared she had placed her blue parking badge in the widow so the details could not be seen. She had struggled across the car-park and found the warden to show him the pass was valid. However he told her that because he had already issued the ticket the computerised system would not let him take revoke it and she would have to appeal.

I took the case up on her behalf and after two e-mails and a letter, in which I had to send copies of both sides of her parking badge, the parking fine was scrapped.

I certainly learned three very important lessons from this incident. Firstly the Council’s system of issuing parking tickets is so inflexible that even putting a disabled parking badge upside down would generate a fine. Secondly the Council seem determined to make visitors to the town feel unwelcome, and thirdly the Council’s car-parking fines collection service is run from Stoke-on-Trent and that all communication must be by e-mail or letter. No wonder the Conservatives are worried that the income from car-parks is well below the expected level if this is how motorists are treated! But in the other hand, making it difficult to appeal against a parking ticket might just be a ploy to ensure that they do not loose any more money than they have too!