Drivers must not pay these parking fines

9:55am Tuesday 30th October 2007

WITH reference to the front page article in Saturday's paper regarding Bolton Council's policy towards parking enforcement, at last someone like Barry Moss has had the time to properly prepare an official complaint about this policy.

My own experience a few months ago, after receiving a penalty notice for parking outside the old Lion Oil works in St George's Street, was to write to the council pointing out that its signs were not of the legally required standard and therefore couldn't be enforced.

I also pointed out to them that to try to enforce parking and penalty charges in these circumstances was illegal and could have potentially serious repercussions.

A site visit was made by a council representative and the council replied to me saying it agreed to "waive the notice on this occasion". I was also told that the signs would be amended and I was warned about parking there in future.

Despite doing nothing to bring the signs up to the legally required standard, which would enable the council once again to legally charge for parking, I received another penalty charge notice for parking there.

I wrote to the council again, pointing out that its actions were illegal, both for demanding payment for the parking fee and also for issuing a penalty notice.

Once again, the penalty notice was cancelled and I was told that the council had again arranged for further signage to be put in place. This signage turned out not to be the proper road signs as demanded by the law but instead photocopied A4 notices pointing the way to the ticket machine, which were tied to every stanchion of the scaffolding outside the works.

I would advise anybody who paid to park in St George's Street, outside the oil works between Kay Street and All Saints Street, at any time after April 11, 2007, to write to the council demanding their money back, not forgetting to add the cost of postage and any other expenses.

If anybody has paid a penalty charge notice for this stretch of road that was issued after April 11, 2007, they should instruct a solicitor to take action to recover the illegally imposed fines for them.

John Henderson, Rusland Drive, Harwood