Saturday 16 August 2008

Tree with a preservation order saves £60 parking fine...(click on pics to enlarge them)






















After a TV programme I appeared in some months ago on North West Tonight regarding parking in Bolton a Mrs Halpin from Sefton Borough saw it and got in touch with me, she told me she was taking her disabled child to the doctors but there was no parking spaces on the surgery car park (sounds familiar) she parked outside on Double yellows and took her son into the Doctors, she made sure he was safe and returned to the car to move it, but a Parking Attendant was already issuing a Parking Ticket, Mrs Halpin explained to the parking attendant what she had done, but he just said you can stay there for 24 hours now, you can only get one ticket every 24 hours. Mrs Halpin sent informal mitigating representations to Sefton Parking Services but her pleas for mitigation were turned down by Mrs S. Lynn from parking services informing Mrs Halpin that the PCN was issued correctly and Pay up or appeal.
I asked Mrs Halpin for pictures of the area where she got the ticket and found that the kerb tab on the double yellow lines (no loading between certain times) was badly faded, but more significant was the upright signplate which though carrying the correct diagram for the restriction was covered by foliage, it is not a motorists job to hunt around for sign plates showing the restrictions and certainly not her job to move foliage about to read the sign, the council sneakily sent Mrs Halpin pics of part of the yellow kerb tabs which were in good repair and the picture of the sign plate (above) however it transpires that the Tree had a preservation order on it and presumably that was why it was overgrowing the sign, but how many parking Tickets were issued where this sign is, not to mention the lies on the letter from Mrs E. Morriss stating that she was cancelling the ticket on the original representations from Mrs Halpin, sorry but it is Hogwash had Mrs Halpin not asked for my help, Sefton Council would have taken £70 off Mrs Halpin without batting an eyelid, so I accuse Sefton parking services of lying to Mrs Halipin regarding her initial appeal to the Council, Why did the Council not cancel the ticket after Mrs Halpin wrote to them with advice from me what to put, its because they were caught with their hands in the till, Sefton Council join the ever increasing list of lying corrupt councils who are interested in only screwing what they can from vulnerable folk.
Mrs S. Lynn should now do the honourable thing and resign along with Mrs Morriss, the public want only public servants who do the right thing first time, not after they have been caught out.

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