Recently a lone police office has been seen around town ticketing the worst of the parking offenders. However for the poor police constable, ticketing illegally parked cars is akin to Hercules’ cleansing of the Augean Stables, but, as we recently reported, further police have been promised following Rother’s recent commitment to Civil Parking Enforcement. As good as their word, the relevant authorities have doubled the number of police and as the picture shows, we now have two officers on occasional patrol of the streets.
An area that they do not cover, however, are the pay-and-display car parks. Most are run by Rother who have their own employees to check that tickets have been bought. An exception is the Station car park which is managed by Indigo on behalf of the railway. It, too, is pay-and-display and there are no exceptions, as one unfortunate couple found out last week.
It was market day (Thursday) and as the car park was full they had parked their car on the double yellow line adjacent to the public toilets at the entrance of the car park. Not the best place to park, perhaps, but, as Blue Badge holders, perfectly legal. Not realising that this area is part of the station property and therefore also included as part of the car park, they did not buy a ticket.
An expensive mistake. Indigo’s man on the spot was quick to pounce and a £100 ticket was slapped on the car. The car owners (right) protested that they did not realise this was part of the car park but the man in the uniform would have none of it: they hadn’t bought a ticket, so they would be given a ticket – of a very different sort.
Subsequent enquiries have established that this short piece of road is indeed railway land, the Indigo employee was quite within his rights to extract a fine and the notice at the entrance to the car park, although written in letters too small to read easily from even a slow moving car, does appear to confirm this.
So the moral is, be very careful where you park. With police now regularly seen again in the town and car parking attendants on the look-out, illegal parking could become costly.
Photos: John MInter and Lyn Hardy-Smith
Image Credits: John Minter .
Clarity of boundary lines between public and private land ownership needs to be established to prevent unintentional breach of parking legislation on public roads and the terms of private parking conditions. Because public highway has its own legislation and on private land the motorist enters into a set of ‘conditions’ when they park on private land. In the second case it would appear that no leeway is given to the disabled, to park on this piece of private land without payment. Therefore what needs to be erected on both sides of the road on the boundary line between private and public land is an car park sign, stating that it is the entrance to a pay and display car park. For example is the ‘Drop off Zone’ part of the private car park and should the motorist pay a ‘parking fee’ when they collect or drop somebody off? since in this case the area forms part of the fee paying car park. i.e. No pre-payment made to park, big fat fee landowners private parking ticket issued. Clarification Please.