OT; How much fun can I have with this?

[The Medway Handyman]

Spent two days working in a flat in the high street in January. Parkings restricted, so I purchased a parking dispensation from the council. Allowed me to park in residents bays, single & double yellow lines.

Few weeks ago I got a parking ticket. Local council have a smart car with a roof mounted camera. Apparently they don't have to stick the ticket on the vehicle anymore, just take a photo.

Said smart car photographed the back of the van. Parking dispensation (A4) clearly visible in front windscreen.

Lazy gits didn't get out of the smart car to check. Pillocks at the council obviously don't have a system to correlate dispensations & tickets.

Send the details to the local rag, but they only published it as a letter to the editor.

I've now got a charge certificate threatening to take me to court if I don't pay £105.

Do any of the more evil minded amongst you have any suggestions on how to make them squirm?

[ARWadsworth]

You could shit through their letterbox.

Adam

[Dave Plowman (News)]

How do they know which vehicles are allowed to park? Here we have permits which go on the screen. Number plate recognition?

Make sure you get it sorted before it goes too far - otherwise you'll get grief. Officials are paid to give you that grief. Which here includes using courts many miles away.

Hope you contacted them within the time allowed to pay - otherwise a difficult to stop system starts rolling, regardless of any rights you may think you have.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Keep on appealing.

And appealing.

And don't be put off by the fact that the fine doubles every time you do.=

[EricP]

Reply telling them you had a paid dispensation but forget to give details of it so somebody will have to troll to find it.

[The Medway Handyman]

They obviously don't. If they had looked at the front of the vehicle they would have seen the A4 dispensation.

Any grief will be in their direction.

Its clear cut.

[The Medway Handyman]

Like it! I could tell them that the contravention didn't occur & the information is somewher in their system :-)

[Dave Plowman (News)]

It's ok if you've answered all the posts they've sent you - but if ignored thinking you'll have your day in court can prove very inconvenient. You could have to swear an affidavit you've not received any of the paperwork. And a privatized parking company will likely use the court closest to their head office, etc - not one convenient to you.

[Frank Erskine]

On Sat, 25 Apr 2009 16:15:17 GMT, "The Medway Handyman" had this to say:

Assuming you have the time to spare, let them take you to court, and insist on them showing the court all their evidence, ie photos taken from both front and rear of your vehicle. When they can't produce that, then it's just your word against theirs.

[The Natural Philosopher]

It may be, but failure to comply with their timings may make you in=20 default anyway.

Plenty of innocent people get arrested and charged with wasting police=20 time ;-)

[Cicero]

=========================================

I would suggest some caution. It's quite possible that somebody (possibly ousted from their normal parking space) has complained that you were using your dispensation improperly; it may be that somebody complained that you didn't need constant access to your vehicle as you were only using portable hand tools. This condition appears to crop up in many of the online application forms, describing it as 'convenience parking' rather than essential parking.

In any case it might make sense to look ahead to the next time you want a dispensation, which might not be so readily issued if you upset them now. A light touch now might save you a lot of unnecessary trouble.

Cic.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

In my case, had I let it go to court, I'd have had to go to Northampton. Would have cost as much in petrol and time as just paying the penalty. Basically, they have the 'fun' with you rather than the other way round...

[PCPaul]

I thought court cases had to be allocated to a place convenient for the defendant?

[Lobster]

I think that's sound advice actually. I can see exactly where TMH is coming from, and I would feel the same myself, but from a practical viewpoint if you put the boot in you'll not gain anything yourself other than smug satisfaction, and is there any value in possibly making enemies who might then go out of their way to reciprocate in kind at the first possible opportunity?

David

[The Medway Handyman]

Or make them wary...

It's this 'don't rock the boat' attitude that makes the bastards think they can get away with anything.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

There will be hosts of officials paid lots of money to deal with things like this. With access to legal advice. Unless you have lots of time and money you'll almost certainly come off worse if you take them on.

What did the council say when you contacted them after getting the penalty notice?

Are you sure you had the correct permit to park your commercial vehicle where you did? Round here it's a different one needed from a visitor's pass.

[chris French]

But there is a difference between saying to them, you've got it wrong, I had a permit which you missed and lodging an appeal on that basis. Which is quite reasonable. And going out of your way to be awkward about it and trying to score points off them, which isn't actually going to help resolve the issue.

[Peter Scott]

I am sure I remember reading, possibly in Which, that a surprisingly high percentage of appeals succeed. Does seem to me that if the permit really was valid then it is an open and shut case. Parliament is getting sniffy about this, and clamping. Try your MP. Just saying that's what you're doing often does the trick. Did with me and the Environment Agency.

Peter Scott

[Dave Plowman (News)]

An appeal with a reasonable excuse does work provided you do it within the allowed period given for paying the penalty. Let it go over that time thinking you'll get your day in court is where it starts getting tricky. Round here, at least.

[GMM]

When I had a parking 'issue', I found that nothing I did earned any response from them and got the impression that unless you paid whatever they were asking for (which keeps on rising), they completely disregard all communications. At the final stage, I wrote back to say 'see you in court then'. A date was fixed but, a couple of days beforehand, I was contacted by someone senior (probably the first person to have read anything I wrote) to apologise and withdraw their claim. Clearly he could see there was no mileage in it for them and he would simply look stupid when we discussed the case. I suspect this happens a fair bit although, uncharacteristically, I had responded to each of their letters promptly, even if they had disregarded what I said. Does rather require that something with some semblance of a central nervous system reviews the case before court, I suppose.....