Parked out of a bay in a zone I pay £124 a year for a permit!!!!

[gribbo2001]

First of all apologies for the agro sounding title! Highly annoyed with Brighton Council at the moment.

 

A bit of background - brighton has a ridiculous parking permit scheme where you have to prove your a resident via council tax, tenancy agreement, etc and then pay extra to park outside your front door. Tax on car ownership or what?!

 

Despite paying this ridiculous fee I parked the car roughly two months ago one street away in a space against a wall. As a result of the narrow space and the close proximity to the wall my passenger was unable to exit the car so I reparked to allow enough space for her to alight the vehicle.

 

I came back the next day to find a ticket on the car as we were parked incorrectly. I had a measuring tape on me and noted I was 14 inches over the lines but was clearly leaving 4.7 metres for cars to pass. Seeing as how the average car is 1.9 metres wide and this is a one way street this doesn't seem to be particularly fair so I wrote to them to appeal.

 

Their advice is that I should have allowed my passenger to alight before parking. Is this correct? Surely this breaches some part of the highway code as it potentially could put my passenger and other road users in danger?

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

All the best,

Dan

[Jamberson]

I can understand your anger, but I don't think there's anything anyone can do to help you. What's the state of play with the appeal? Was is upheld or rejected?

 

In response to a couple of your specific comments:

 

you have to prove your a resident via council tax, tenancy agreement, etc and then pay extra to park outside your front door. Tax on car ownership or what?!

 

Obviously, for a resident's permit scheme to be effective, they can't sell permits to anyone who wants one. You have to live there, and it's not unreasonable for them to want to see robust proof that you are a resident. Council Tax and household bills are pretty good mechanisms I think. It's a pain, but a necessary one.

 

And of course, to run and administer the offices etc. requires fees to be charged... It's not the permit fees where the Council makes their money - it's revenue from PCNs. You can get a breakdown of their income and expenditure in connection with the permit scheme if you write to them.

 

Their advice is that I should have allowed my passenger to alight before parking. Is this correct? Surely this breaches some part of the highway code as it potentially could put my passenger and other road users in danger?

 

I wouldn't have thought so. Just let them alight somewhere safe. It doesn't have to be that precise spot. Also, you can adjust the car's positioning before you walk away. Can't see you've got much of a complaint over that one.

[TheBogsDollocks]

What contravention code?

[68904]

If you parked in a space near to a wall, was it a parking bay, with markings or just an odd bit of road?

Can yo take some pictures of where you parked, show any signs on poles, and if you parked on a parking bay show clear pics of both end markings, and any broken white lines down the out side of the bay.

Brighton are known for defective signs and lines.