Is the City of Exeter in the UK encouraging the writing of invalid parking tickets?
In a blog on September 30 entitled “The Great Parking Scandal” I reported about claims that Civil Enforcement Officers (CEOs), traffic wardens working for the Exeter City Council, were encouraged to write parking tickets even when the CEOs themselves believed the parking signs were unclear or misleading. The story was reported in the Sunday Telegraph and I wanted to give the Exeter City Council a chance to respond.
"The City Council enforces on-street parking restrictions on behalf of the County Council and takes direction from them on the circumstances in which Penalty Charge Notices should be issued," states City Council spokesman Rob Simmonds in an interview with Parking World.
"The instruction we have received from the County Council is that it is appropriate to issue Penalty Charge Notices where the intention of a parking restriction is clearly communicated to the reasonable motorist. Imperfections in signs and road markings do not in themselves make a Penalty Charge Notice invalid or unlawful; each case will depend on its own facts."
Simmonds also adds the cryptic note, "In any event, the staff concerned resigned in the face of disciplinary proceedings that had nothing whatsoever to do with the circumstances in which Penalty Charge Notices should be issued."
The question I had asked was, "Is it possible to get a comment from someone in the Exeter government about the claims that CEOs were instructed to issue tickets even at locations where the officers themselves had warned that signs were incorrect."
The response from the Council did not actually answer that question. I followed up with two more questions.
1. "Your statement does not deny that the City Council instructed CEOs to issue tickets at locations where the officers had warned the signs were incorrect. Without a clear denial, I am forced to assume the story is true. Do you have any further clarification?"
2. "The comment about the staff member resigning seems to imply that the credibility of their claim was in question. Am I misreading that?"
The response from the Exeter City Council came back simply, "We don't have anything to add to that statement."
Pete Goldin
Comments