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WALTHAM FOREST: Parking fine exposes bizarre rule

8:00pm Tuesday 3rd June 2008

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A BIZARRE council rule led to a woman being fined £60 for putting parking vouchers worth the correct amount on her car.

Gill Hodges wanted to park for two hours near Chingford Mount Road and used four parking vouchers to make up the required £2 fee.

But when the 60-year-old returned to her green Vauxhall Omega, she was shocked to discover a traffic warden had given her a parking ticket because she had not used two £1 hour vouchers.

Mrs Hodges said: "I couldn't believe it when he told me. I feel it's very wrong. I had paid for two hours and I hadn't broken the law.

"If somebody has blatantly parked on a yellow line then fair enough, but I didn't. I want to warn people that the council is doing this."

When she returned to her Pole Hill home in Chingford, Mrs Hodges wrote an angry email to the council and the local authority decided to cancel the ticket and reimburse her.

She added: "I'm worried that if people are continually fined for buying the wrong vouchers then they won't want to go out to the shops.

"The council is just trying to make as much money as possible and it is all so unnecessary."

Cllr Bob Belam, environment cabinet member, said: "As in any such case, a motorist has the right to challenge a parking penalty through an individual appeals process.

"Within the Traffic Management Act, local authorities now possess a greater degree of discretion in such cases, which is a vast change from the less flexible Road Traffic Act.

"Despite clear instructions on the reverse of Mrs Hodges' vouchers warning that you can only use two vouchers at any time, the council decided to use its discretionary powers and revoke the fine.

"However, this cancellation came with the proviso that should Mrs Hodges get another parking ticket, that fine will not be cancelled."

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Your Say YourEast London and West Essex Guardian Series

Observer (the original), says...
11:53pm Tue 3 Jun 08

The crass stupidity of local authorities is almost beyond belief. Is it really necessary to limit employment there to those with an IQ below 30?

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Mr. T. C. Hull, Walthamstow says...
2:09am Wed 4 Jun 08

This just shows that the local authority is more interested in taking as much money from LOCAL motorists as possible. By all means charge non residents for parking in the Borough but the present system is nothing more than legalised theft. Still that's only to be expected from this maladministration!!

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S King, Walthamstow says...
8:55am Wed 4 Jun 08

This is typical Waltham Forest Council at it's usual heavy-handed best. Could Cllr Bob Belam sound any more smug in his statement? Regardless of the council's decision to revoke the fine, it should NEVER have been given in the first place. I'm sick to death of hearing the same waffle from these people with regards to signs, notices, instructions and warnings, claiming that were clearly marked. Rubbish! If they were, then people wouldn't be fined like this!

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Chingford United Netball Team, E4 says...
9:14am Wed 4 Jun 08

I would have thought the Council would concentrate on the non-payers rather than someone who has paid.

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Pete, Chingford says...
9:21am Wed 4 Jun 08

£2 is £2 isnt it, however many vouchers are used to make up the amount?

Are people only allowed 2 vouchers to make the amount because that is as far as the traffic wardens can count to?

You couldnt make it up!!!

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Dave, Chingford says...
9:38am Wed 4 Jun 08

Yet another example of Crass Stupidity from our beloved council. I just love the way they always twist it around to make it our fault and they are only letting us off from the goodness of their own heart and Don't do it again naughty children.

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technomist, walthamstow says...
10:10am Wed 4 Jun 08

I am glad that this fine has been revoked. I don't get why someone came up with the idea that only two vouchers should be used in the first place. If a person has bought some vouchers, the council, (i.e. the rest of us), have been paid. People who have been honest enough to have bought them should be allowed to use the vouchers in a combination that suits them to display on their car. They should not be placed in a position of having to go through an expensive and time-consuming appeals process: relying on this and the exercise of 'discretion', rather than making the system make sense and work properly in the first place makes the council look authoritarian and as if they are not interested in serving the public so much as making the system serve them. As a Liberal Democrat, I hope Mr Belam will see this and do the sensible thing to get rid of these jobsworthy petty-frogging attitudes from the local bureaucracy: if there is a person whose attitude towards their job has created a vested interest in keeping this crazy 'system' going, please get rid of them and save us all the costs of their salary.




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Dexterdodgy, E4 says...
1:03pm Wed 4 Jun 08

Let Bob know what you think.

http://www1.walthamf
orest.gov.uk/moderng
ov/mgUserInfo.asp?UI
D=230&J=1

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Maurice Reed, says...
2:24pm Wed 4 Jun 08

I am sure that it is clearly that you must not have more than two of these permits on display at any one time.

Then again if the parking wardens had any common sense (oh I forgot that you musn't say that these days) they would have ignored it.

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Dexterdodgy, E4 says...
3:28pm Wed 4 Jun 08

If they hadn't doubled the charge there would be no problems.

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Frank, Leyton says...
3:53pm Wed 4 Jun 08

Waltham Forest Council - I hope you are reading the posts about your ridiculous behaviour. You make me sick. You and some of the people you employ are a disgrace. You should be ashamed.
Discretion, common sense – do you understand?

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D, E17 says...
6:35pm Wed 4 Jun 08

Are the parking wardens employed by the council? I thought that parking control was administered by a contractor? At least when I paid for my parking permit I payed the money to NCP. Point I'm trying to make is that the wardens might not be employed by the council so maybe it is a little unfair to attack a councillor, who has nothing to do with who NCP employs, for a decision made by a person employed by a third party company? The fine was revoked anyway so whats the fuss?

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Dave, Chingford says...
10:22pm Wed 4 Jun 08

The 'Fuss' is cause of how Stupid it is, everyone knows that the contractors are on a Bonus scheme, the more tickets the more money, enforce every petty infringement, Most people will pay and not cause a fuss, Till the time that successful appeals are charged back to the coucil itself (personally back to Councilours) things prob unlikely to change

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technomist, walthamstow says...
10:53am Thu 5 Jun 08

D wrote:
Are the parking wardens employed by the council? I thought that parking control was administered by a contractor? At least when I paid for my parking permit I payed the money to NCP. Point I'm trying to make is that the wardens might not be employed by the council so maybe it is a little unfair to attack a councillor, who has nothing to do with who NCP employs, for a decision made by a person employed by a third party company? The fine was revoked anyway so whats the fuss?
One of the great things about this site is being able to use a name to hide your identity, so Bob can write in and say things like this if he wants to or get one of his mates to do it and pretend it isn't him. Fair play, as I use a blog name too.

Still, pretending this is a fuss about nothing won't get the councillors off the hook that easily, and especially not Bob Belam, who is quoted in the article. His quoted response seems unsympathetic and high-handed to me. I know Bob is actually a great public servant and dedicated councilor but unfortunately his reply on this occassion does not demonstrate that he appreciates it is his role to defend the public interest first and foremost, not those of the council employees we pay to serve us but who run the place for their own convenience. The councillors are elected to take responsibility and should not hide behind the contractual arrangements they are responsible for keeping in place. They set the tone in an administration and would be advised to set a less authoritarian one.

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Myra, Walthamstow says...
8:14pm Fri 6 Jun 08

The lady paid the right amount and we the residents got our money. How much more of it was wasted by the local authority having to spend time reviewing the situation and deciding to reimburse her for something which should never have happened in the first place

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D, E17 says...
3:05pm Sun 8 Jun 08

Whoops, I had no idea that people were so paranoid! I've got nothing to do with Bob Belam, never met the bloke, I don't even know what party he is a member of. I just thought it was a bit unfair to attack him for a process that is run by a contractor, thats all. Loads of council services are run by contractors now and no doubt they've all got bonus schemes and the like to motivate their employees to make short cuts and boost figures, we let it happen and now we've got to live with it. I reckon there are far bigger problems in the borough than the fact that there are a few parking wardens trying it on. If a ticket is issued incorrectly, contest it and get your money back, easy innit?

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mdj, e10 says...
12:32am Tue 10 Jun 08

Yes D, many services are run by independent contractors:that's why we elect and pay councillors to scrutinise those contracts before they vote on them: however you look at it, this was a petty act of bullying. There was no sign of an apology in Mr Belam's response: remember a few months ago when people were being illegally fined by the score by a camera car in Leytonstone High Rd? When the Council finally was forced to back down, the same Mr Belam said that people would have to apply to get their money back, even though the Council had all the addresses of everyone who was fined. I don't know what Mr Belam's day job is, but I bet it's in the public sector: too many of our Councillors see themselves as PR men for the bureaucrats, when it's their job to be as stroppy as hell on OUR behalf. People like this really don't understand democracy, or if they do they don't like it.There are enough jobsworths in public life without our actually voting for more of them.

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