I spent 3 months working in Yeovil, Somerset, and because I was working as a contractor to the Council thought it was my right to use the overnight Council car park free. The Parking Warden in charge of that beat felt differently and took pleasure in slapping a ticket on the windscreen each morning. A Bedford TK Crewbus with van body. Telling him we were Council men (in a way) did no good so we let him enjoy himself each day with his first all important first penalty of the day 8.00 am ticket. What was hilarious is when he saw us coming in a car to commence work he ran across the car park to get a ticket on the windscreen before we could get away. Soon the cab filled up with Yellow tickets which we ignored.
When the job finished, it meant taking the men, workmates, home in a car and then coming back on a 400 mile round trip to collect this truck. After working out the age of the truck, the expense involved collecting it and other factors - it was decided to leave it there and buy another one. So that’s what we did, we left it on the car park for him to enjoy clagging tickets on it for evermore. What became of it I don’t know, the firm heard nothing further about it, maybe it was stolen who knows. As for the tickets we simply wrote a letter to the Penalty Office’ saying we had permission to park there, and heard nothing further from them.
- It needs to be said that I see the job of the various UK Councils to govern a city, not to set up Council car park monopolies, to plaster our cities, towns and villages with yellow lines, and to run sizable businesses using our money, tools, equipment, public land, squares, roads and streets, then appointing themselves car park czars and tycoons with substantial wages earnings and ticket penalty fees to boot. In Leeds my hometown they have Yellow Lined a 1 sq mile area surrounding the 2 main hospitals to prevent you parking there and the Council car par is a £2.00 per hour clip-joint, visiting a patient is a £4. 00+ touch for them. So its costing some families £25.00 per week to visit a loved one. If only this abuse of power could be stopped. If we had a Prime Minister I’d write to him, but wouldn’t waste a stamp on writing to the Absentee Landlord who currently claims to represent us right now. He’s been told by the Backbench committee he’s out in November!!! And I’m a Conservative Voter.