No, frankly they don't.I asked a question of the Leader of the Council at Tuesday evening's Council meeting. I thought it was quite straight forward:
"Could you please provide Council with a list those roads where Traffic Regulation Orders restricting parking have been incorrectly applied, provide an estimate of the number of parking tickets incorrectly issued and give a total value for these tickets."
If you remember the issues was brought to light by a traffic warden who took the Council to an Employment Tribunal for unfair dismissal. He left his job after feeling 'bullied' by his managers because he refused to issue parking tickets to cars parked in areas where there were yellow lines, but where there was no Traffic Regulation Order (TRO) to give the lines legality.
The leader of the council didn't answer the question fully. Indeed he preferred to emphasise the point that if there were yellow lines in the street then people should know not to park there and therefore deserved to recieve a parking ticket whether it was legal or not.
Surely that misses the point entirely? If a ticket has been issued by a traffic warden for an area of road where there is no legal basis for prohibition of parking then that ticket has been issued unlawfully. Full stop. No argument.
I go back to my suplementary question from Tuesday night: "Shouldn't the Council be ashamed? And shouldn't we, as a Council, be apologising?"
Yes, in both cases they should!
The Daily Echo picked up on the story on Thursday, you can read the full article here.
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