Thursday, April 05, 2007

Parking Problems

Grrrr..... I`m not very happy with the Council this week!

For a number of years now, I`ve found it easiest to buy a yearly long stay season ticket for the car parks in this area. This enables me to park all day on one very near where I work, as well as on others in the town and other towns in the locality. And so was great value for money. I could stay all day, or use it just to pop into a town for a short few minutes to nip and do a bit of shopping, walk along the promenade, or anything else I needed to do in various places.

Leaving off work this Monday, I approach my car and find a big leaflet and a piece of white paper stuck under my windscreen wiper. (how I hate people who stick adverts etc under car wipers on car parks!). Anyway, I just glanced at this, about to throw it in the bin, when I saw something written on it in biro. It said "Your parking permit is not valid". I read it again, but I knew the permit was in date, I`d only got it in January. So I unfolded the white sheet of paper and discovered that it was a letter.

Apparently the Council 'in their wisdom' have decreed that this car park should be for short stay only, no more than three hours. Why? so that shoppers and visitors can park there. No consideration for those who work in the shops and offices, they now have to park on the long stay car park which is further out of town. Not too bad in good weather, but in rain, wind, or with heavy shopping or items for work, workers need the convenience of a handy car park as well as others.

So, that leaves me with a dilemna... with my long stay ticket (and being told its not valid on that car park, nor on similiar ones in other towns that I use), what happens when I only want to stay less than 3 hours. Have I got to pay again, or pay out to get an annual Short Stay ticket too, which would be grossly unfair. (I`ve emailed them to ask if they provide time indicators in the way that they do for disabled people or the short stay tickets.... but the automatic reply to the email says that my query will be dealt with by 16th. April!)
I feel like parking on the car park and sticking a note beside the permit, saying I`ll be back in xxx minutes, but I`m afraid if I do, and they won`t accept that and I`ll get a parking fine, and that would make it even more expensive to park.

Anyone any ideas on this?

1 comment:

seethroughfaith said...

They should have warned you at the very least.

No advice - but I'm assuming that your long term stay isn't valid for a short term car park now. So parking fines might come if you park there -which is really too bad since you paid in advance!!!