If anyone can confirm what I can legally do in these circumstances that would be very helpful. Thanks.

We stopped for lunch with friends in a country pub in the middle of nowhere yesterday. As we tucked into the main course the waiter appeared and said they could not take card payments as their machine was down. We didn't have enough cash on us to fully cover the bill and it was roughly five miles from the nearest ATM. I mentioned a cheque and the waiter didn't say anything. The bill arrived and the bar staff and then the Manager refuse to accept the cheque which was already signed and completed. It was being handed to them and they refused to take it as a solution to a problem not of our making. Instead they asked me to leave my card details and security number on a sheet behind the bar. I refused having had a card cloned in a restaurant previously. Then they asked me to leave name/address details and they would phone for the card details, which we did. On reflection I am not minded to give my details over the phone to a company which would suggest we leave the card info on a list by the till, who knows how the information will be disposed of? So, when we get home and they ring for payment can I insist on sending them a cheque?

I am in discussion at the moment, the minute I mentioned the statutory flexible working avenue, it suddenly became possible it could be managed informally. I am thinking about it over the weekend.

It means when I wrote the post I suspected it would happen......and when I got into work the next day, it did!

Thank you. Does the fact that they have done it informally for someone else (to attend University) carry any weight? Reading through the link, it doesn't say that you have to give a reason for the request, so does the reason really matter ? I read it as if they cannot give a reason from the list for refusing, then the request should suceed regardless of the reason for the request (if indeed a reason is given)

Thank you for your response. Do you think my situation would fall under this remit? Are there any guidelines for employers with regard to flexibility due to caring committments?

Thank you, that would really be appreciated.

I have been there for 15 years.

I am contracted to work 30 hours, currently this has been worked over 4 days leaving me with one full day free. I work in a team of over 30 who all either work 30 hours or 18.5. We can all cover all the tasks of any team member. I think that my line manager is going to try to make me work my 30 hours over five days which does not suit me due to having caring responsibilities for an elderly relative and a mentally ill relative. I don't mind which day I have off, but I need it to be one full day as I schedule medical appointments etc, for the day I don't work. I also may be asked to change the day I currenty have off for another one, and whilst I am happy to do this I can't do it for the next three weeks due to having committments which have incurred costs, can they force me to change days and lose monies aready paid? Many of the rest of the team do their hours in 4 days, and at least one has a set day off to attend University. Where do I stand if my manager tries to force the issue? It should be perfectly possible for her to ensure that I only work 4 days but she likes to be difficult and I think she wants to show she is in charge. I have looked at the rules for refusal of flexible working and it appears that on at least 2 points they could not reasonably refuse, but I am not sure if flexible working covers my situation. Can anyone offer me some advice as to what I can reasonably expect of my employer in the circumstances.?

Yes, there is TRO which seems to cover the whole street, but when the scheme was implemented everyone who had garages which fronted the street (and who had not excavated into their front gardens to pull a car off the road) still parked over their garages without a permit. This has happenend for the whole time the scheme has been in operation without tickets being issued - so 12 years. In September the council wrote to residents to say they were changing this (so implicit in that is their acceptance that this had been the case) and that now they would be putting white lines over drives and garages to prevent parking. It was at that point that I challenged them and expressly denied them permission to do that. They have gone ahead anyway, saying that they have always had the right to do it but never bothered. Technically, that may be true, but as residents it was not what we understood we had agreed to, and not what has happened for the first 12 years of the scheme. Even now, they have stated that if we give them the reg numbers of cars that will park there they will "try" to see that enforcement does not occur. I am not happy with that as we have visitors, tradesmen etc and I do not want to have to contact them each time we want to use our own land to allow a vehicle known to us to park. Much easier for them to simply allow an exemption (if that is the process) or remove the line on the basis that we have refused them permission to put it there. All we want is for the status quo to return. We have long since accepted that they rarely ticket those who the scheme was designed to prevent parking. They are simply not there at the relevant times, but, if we have a car parked there all day it is certain they will ticket that if they can.

They are ticketing - mainly visitors to residents homes, or residents whose permits are obscured or who have a wheel over the bay. What they are not doing consistently is to ticket the regular offenders, the ones who are in their cars and waiting for children, the ones who dump ther cars and go and pick up children, the ones whom we agreed to the parking zoning to stop. In the area there were 935 tickets issued in one year, and 2.5 million taken in fines in the borough. So, I think that if they had had the remit to ticket my car when parked on the garage frontage they would indeed have done so. They haven't, not one ticket in all that time. I don't have anything in writing, it is just what has happened over the years, however, nor do they have anything in writing, as according to their parking manager, the records have not survived.

Because we have had a car parked there without being ticketed for 12 years? Because we queried that before we agreed to allow the scheme to go ahead? Because we own the land and did not give permission for that?

The parking bay is marked and does not cover that section of the road. It has never covered that section of the road. It is not and never has been, a designated bay. There have never been any road markings at all in front of the garage, but now there are.

Yes, just signage on the end of the street, and the 1 hour bay only.

Yes, on one side there is street lighting and pavements and on our side we maintain our own pavements and have no lighting. I think that portion was adopted when the school was built there. It gets even stranger! The road ends up in a private road which effectively runs straight through the front gardens of the houses. So, they have house, garden, a strip of roadway allowing vehicle access through to the top of the lane and then more garden. It is a dead end with no through traffic.

I would rather not give my address details, sorry. I do appreciate your comments/input. though. The restrictions did not apply to the space outside our garage as it wasn't included in the scheme. We were able to park there at any time and have done so without a permit since 2003. All we want is for this to continue, but the council say it isn't possible. As we never agreed to this, how can they arbitrarily do it? The signage refers to permit parking in the " designated bays" and we have zoned permits which cover our own street and streets close by, then the zones change and we cannot park in the bays there. There is also a non permit, short stay (1 hour) bay on the opposite side of the street (the adopted side)

It is hard to explain! Outside our house, but still on our land and on our frontage, we have a permit parking bay. The bay did not/does not extend over the garage frontage and there was no white line there. This has been the case since 2003. So, that space was available for parking by us/our visitors without a permit. The council then gave notice that they were going to put white lines across drives and garages (we don't have a drive our garage is flat to the road) which means (according to parking services) we cannot use the space in front of it as a parking space either with or without a permit. Obbviously, anyone else parking there would be obstructing entry to our garage. Even after being told in September that we did not agree to the white line being painted across the garage frontage I returned home on Monday to find they have painted one in. We never agreed to the garage frontage being part of the scheme, nor did our neighbour across the road (on the adopted portion) they are also complaining but I feel that they have less right than we do as they do not own the land on which the markings have been made. We do. Hope that helps clarify the situation? Thanks for your input.

The council have not adopted the road, it remains unadopted. However, we have bought permits to park in designated bays in the road but we do not have a permit for the car which we park on the garage. According to the council either any car parked there will need a permit or regardless of having a permit we cannot park there at all, the response depends on who you speak to. The garage fronts straight onto the road and the "pavement" is maintained by us and the kerb is barely there. The line has been painted across the garage frontage on the road adjacent to the designated permit bays.

Problem with permit parking zone and council. We live in an unadopted road and on our deeds the land up to the centre of the road is ours. Because we live close to a school we agred to give the council permission (in 2003) to introduce a permit parking scheme. This was in the hope that they would police it at relevant times (drop offf/pick up). This has never really happened. Wardens do occasionally make an appearance but they won't confront parents in their cars and just hang around hoping their presence will be enough, then they go away and we don't see them at the relevant times for months on end. We have had to learn to live with this as, despite many letters from residents they say it will improve (but it doesn't) or they say they haven't got the manpower. The bottom line is they are taking money for a service they can't or won't provide. Now, however, they have gone too far. They sent out a letter in September stating that they would be putting a white line across drives and garages so preventing anyone parking there. Our garage fronts onto the road and we use that space as somewhere to park for visitors/extra car as a permit has never been needed there as it wasn't in the scheme. We disputed it with the council and stated that they were expressly not to put such a marking across our garage which is on our land. They responded saying that the letter was to be passed to their legal team. To date we have not received a response to that letter. Fast forward to Monday and I returned home to find a white line across my garage, effectively, removing a parking space from our house. As we have 3 cars that is a real problem because everyone else in the road also has a lot of cars and we all use the places outside our own houses as a courtesy to the neighbours. Now they have stated that they may not have acted upon their rights (under traffic regs) to put lines there before but they have decided to do so now. They have also said that we can't rescind our permissions or have any input to whether the lines/permit zone continues on our frontage as, even if we own it, and it is unadopted, they still have rights that trump ours. We are taking this further but I wondered if anyone had any inside info re this kind of thing or personal experiences to relate?