Pay by phone cost me parking ticket

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It’s not often I feel compelled to write a letter of complaint but Horsham District Council offers a pay by phone service and I’ve had the recent misfortune to discover that unless you are fully familiar with how this system operates you can end up with a parking ticket! As I did.

The park by phone system relies on the 

driver/parker to contact the number provided.

Read the full article here

Motorist's ticket fell off windscreen at Changegate car park

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A motorist is celebrating after beating Haworth’s notorious car clampers in court.

Adam Bolam-Peel, from Oxenhope, won back the £90 he had to pay for a clamp to be removed from his vehicle in the Changegate car park.

Mr Bolam-Peel, who appeared last year on TV reality show Come Dine With Me, said he was also awarded his court costs.

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'I'm not paying unfair Purley parking fine'

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COUNCIL parking chiefs have performed a U-turn after a carpenter threatened to take them to court.

John Meliniotis had pledged to "fight tooth and nail", over the Purley High Street tickets which had accumulated a cost of nearly £400 after the council sent them to the wrong address.

Mr Meliniotis first heard of the fines when a summons from a court in Northampton landed on his doormat last month, after the case was escalated to the courts.

Read the full article here

Suspension for security firm boss

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A DIRECTOR of a Cornish security firm has been suspended.

It follows a series of complaints levelled against Armtrac Security Services, which have been revealed by the West Briton.

The firm is also being investigated by the security business regulator, British Parking Association (BPA) and has been brought to the attention of the transport minister.

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Pictured: The moment traffic warden slaps parking tickets on two minibuses carrying disabled children after they sang at charity carol concert

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This is the moment a traffic warden slapped £70 parking tickets on two minibuses carrying disabled children after they raised hundreds of pounds for a homeless charity by singing in a carol concert.

The youngsters, many in wheelchairs, were being lifted into two specially-adapted ambulances in Nottingham when the enforcement officer wrote out two penalty notices before walking away.

The twelve children from Oak Field School and Sports College in Bilborough, Nottinghamshire, were returning from the concert on Monday afternoon which raised £370 when they were hit with the fines.

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We’re taken for £1.3bn park & ride

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MOTORISTS were stung for a record £1.3billion in parking 

charges by town halls last year — £160,000 AN HOUR.

An estimated 10,000 tickets were dished out a day by councils, 

despite warnings from the Government not to treat drivers as “cash 

cows”.

The official figures do not even include charges in privately-run car 

parks — meaning the full toll will be even higher.

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Firm refuses to refund tickets to Hyndburn residents

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A COUNCIL has slammed town centre car park operators for refusing to refund ‘unfair’ tickets.

Hyndburn Council, and the borough’s MP intervened after hundreds of tickets were issued on Accrington’s Eastgate car park.

The tickets were issued when time limits were changed from three hours to ninety minutes.

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Scottish Parliament car park barrier’s £7,000 compensation bill

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THE Scottish Parliament’s £250,000 anti-terror car parking barrier has created terror of its own – by damaging MSPs’ cars.

The security barrier has dented five vehicles since it was installed, forcing parliament bosses to pay £7,000 compensation.

It has also emerged that the barriers have been out of action completely almost one day in ten this year.

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Record-breaking driver racks up 88 parking tickets in just two years

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The driver of a luxury 4x4 has racked up an astonishing 88 parking tickets in the city centre in just two years, making the vehicle the most ticketed in Cambridge.

On average, more than one ticket every 10 days has been slapped on the Audi Q7 – which is worth about £45,000 – for flouting city centre parking rules since November 2010.

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Council trial new number plate recognition at car park

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Bedford Borough Council is trialling new camera technology at one of its car parks that scans drivers’ number plates.

St Peter’s Street car park is the first in Bedford Borough to be fitted with the function. The council says it won’t cost any extra to run.

The system is called Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) and records vehicles in and out of the car park, 24-hours-a-day.

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‘Parking officers in Grantham are using their power in the wrong way’

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Civil parking enforcement (CPE) in Grantham is coming under fire as residents - and even a doctors’ surgery - are being hit by what they believe are unfair fines.

Parking officers have been out in force in the town centre since CPE came into play at the start of the month.

The Journal has received a number of reports of instances of rude officers and unjust fines.

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Blue badge disabled parking to be extended in Wales

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The blue badge parking scheme for disabled people is being extended to those with conditions such as autism, the Welsh government has announced.

The badges will now be offered to those with 'severe cognitive impairments'.

They will also be automatically available for those on the new system of personal independence payments (Pip) which come into force next spring.

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Lake District National Park Authority ditches Parking Eye at car parks

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AN UNPOPULAR parking management system which netted a private company nearly half a million pounds is to be replaced by the Lake District National Park Authority (LDNPA).

Car park contracts with the firm Parking Eye, which currently enforces fees at some Lake District car parks, will not be renewed as they come to an end, say LDNPA bosses.

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Unions call for council control of parking

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UNION leaders today called for Glasgow's troubled City Parking to be brought back under direct council control.

The arm's-length external organisation, or Aleo, has posted successive losses since it was created five years ago. Last night we revealed the business is to receive further financial aid from the council – to the tune of £500,000 – on top of several previous rescue packages.

Now Unison, which represents City Parking's workers, says it believes the experiment with semi-privatisation should be brought to a halt.

Chairman of the union's Glasgow City Council branch, Brian Smith, said: "We've always been sceptical about the Aleos. You only need to look at the continual bailouts the council gives to City Parking."

The business provides both on- and off-street parking and is responsible for issuing parking fines.

Unison suggests much of this work is a vital public service rather than a commercial business: without parking attendants keeping yellow lines clear, the city could grind to a halt.

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Parking fines issued in Falmouth 'without permission'

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PEOPLE hit with parking fines in one Falmouth car park are being urged not to pay – by its owner.

Discovery Quay Car Park is at the centre of a row between its owner, New Cornwall Development, and Armtrac Security Services.

New Cornwall Development claims Armtrac has been issuing £60 fines to drivers without permission for more than a month.

Motorists initially complained about being fined by Armtrac while the ticketing machine was broken.

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Blue badge impact on parking revenue questioned

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MORE than six months after a move to charge disabled people in Aldershot and Farnborough to park their cars, the council has suffered a fall in income from parking revenue.

Rushmoor Borough Council introduced changes to the area's blue badge parking scheme in April, which meant disabled motorists have had to pay full fees to use council car parks if they are not automatically entitled to a badge.

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Prolific traffic warden clocks up £256k in fines

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A traffic warden has issued more tickets than any of his colleagues handing out an incredible 4,266 fines in one year.

That means the Cambridgeshire enforcement officer has given out  £256,000 in fines to motorists by issuing one in 10 tickets last year outstripping his fellow wardens.

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Plymouth City Council admits fine error after police diverted drivers

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Hundreds of motorists who followed a diversion during serious flooding have been sent fines.

Police directed traffic down a bus lane when an overflowing sewer closed Gdynia Way in recent deluges.

But new enforcement cameras were left switched on – and £60 fines are now landing on outraged drivers' doormats.

Council workers have now been told to write to everyone who was issued a penalty charge notice (PCN) during the Gdynia Way flooding fiasco.

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DMUK reveal shocking results of car parking survey

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With discussions over the transport legacy left by the Paralympics at a high and heightened awareness of the difficulties facing disabled travellers, there is no better time for DMUK to reveal the results of its car park survey.

The specially commissioned survey involved an audit of 20 city centre car parks from across England, Scotland and Wales to discover how accessible the UK’s car parks are for disabled people. The survey was divided into 3 areas of investigation: driver access; pedestrian access and general provisions and management of the car park. Shocking results

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Crass council incompetence - A sign of the times

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This is a great example of council incompetence in action.

Here is a photograph of a sign recently installed by Coventry City Council at their civic offices.

Please forward any other examples to info@nmag.co.uk

More than 150 councils barred from DVLA database after breaching motorists’ privacy

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More than 150 town halls have been blocked from accessing the DVLA database after breaking rules protecting motorists’ privacy.

In dozens of cases, councils were caught making unauthorised access to the database - which contains personal details of every licensed driver in the UK.

In others, officials were barred because they hadn’t kept proper records of who was accessing the database, how often and for what reason.

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DVLA tackles 294 public organisations for database abuse

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In the past three years, 294 public organisations have faced action over their use of the database containing details of car registrations and driving licenses.

In response to a Freedom of Information Act request from Big Brother Watch, the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA) disclosed that the organisations were overwhelmingly local authorities, but included Sussex Police and Transport for London.

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£170,000 fed into unenforced parking meters

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MOTORISTS have fed more than £170,000 into Bournemouth parking meters in the last three months, even though they had no chance of receiving a fine.

Bournemouth traffic wardens stopped handing out tickets to motorists in parts of the town on September 7 because of a problem with legal documentation regarding enforcement, which has still not been sorted out.

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Yarm Mayor wins appeal after deliberately landing himself with parking fine

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A MAYOR who deliberately landed himself with a fine to test the legality of parking charges in his home town has secured a partial victory.

Jason Hadlow, chairman of Yarm Town Council, parked without a disc on Yarm High Street in March and received a £60 fine.

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Firms leave Nottingham 'over Workplace Parking Levy'

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Nottingham is losing businesses to other cities over its         workplace parking tax, the Chamber of Commerce has warned.

In April, Nottingham City Council introduced the Workplace Parking Levy (WPL), which charges companies with 11 spaces or more, £288 a year per bay.

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£6,000 owed to ‘illegal’ parkers

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A crusading retired policeman claimed this week that motorists may have been wrongly fined a total of up to £6,000 over four years for parking in an Exmouth town centre street.

Mr Percy Prowse, the Conservative county councillor for Duryard and Pennsylvania in Exeter, told the Journal that legal documents drafted for Victoria Road in 2008 had been botched by county traffic officers.

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South Lakeland car parking machines will no longer need registration numbers

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DRIVERS will no longer have to key in their car registration numbers into new South Lakeland District Council parking machines come the new year.

The pay and display machines have been controversial since they were introduced at 38 car parks in the area earlier this year at a cost of £340,000.

There was an outcry from residents, visitors and traders because motorists were forced to enter their registration details to get a ticket.

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Anger over parking tickets in Tewkesbury during floods

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TRAFFIC wardens in Tewkesbury have been accused of lacking compassion after ticketing cars stranded due to flood water.

While some residents and businesses in the town have battled to prevent their premises from flooding, they have had to park their vehicles where they can.

But that has, at times, meant leaving them in areas not normally allowed.

Borough council traffic wardens have handed out a number of parking tickets as a result.

Read the full article here

Latest scam spam ploy: Bogus pay-by-phone London parking receipts

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Mundane cloak hides malware dagger

Bogus "pay by phone parking receipts" doing the rounds by email and targeted at UK users are actually designed to spread malware, security watchers warn.

The spam campaign is designed to trick recipients into viewing a fictitious list of parking transactions, contained in a malicious attachment. "Upon executing the malicious attachment, the malware opens a backdoor on the affected host," Dancho Danchev, a security researcher at Webroot explains.

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NHS 'missing out' on car park fees

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The NHS is potentially missing out on millions of pounds a year generated from car parking fees that could be going into the coffers of private companies, an investigation will reveal.

Hospital trusts and health boards in the UK rely heavily on private companies to run their car parks, with five big hospitals admitting that none of the money made goes back into the NHS.

A nationwide freedom of information request by the BBC's Watchdog Daily programme found that from 152 responses, 126 hospital trusts and health boards in the UK have car parks that charge for parking.

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Watchdog: Reader charged £150 for not parking

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Private parking firm recorded our reader on CCTV, got his details from the DVLA and is now chasing him for money

You’d have thought that the 1 October clamping ban would force private parking companies to behave – but you’d be wrong.

Take the case of Phil Jenkins. He drove in and out of a private car park without parking up and getting out of the car – but is now being chased for a £150 charge.

Read the full article here

Chicago: Woman Racks Up $105k In Parking Fines

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A Chicago woman has racked up parking fines of more than $105,000 (£65,500) on a car that she says she does not even own.

Jennifer Fitzgerald's former boyfriend bought a used car from her uncle for $600 (£375) in 2008, but he registered it in her name without her knowledge.

Read the full article here

Leeds hospital car park fines rage

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Drivers have been left with ‘car park rage’ after they were each fined £100 despite buying a parking ticket.

Now the four motorists have told the Yorkshire Evening Post they will not pay as a matter of principal.

Each driver had parked in a privately-managed ‘pay & display’ car park opposite St James’s Hospital on Beckett Street but bought their tickets from a near-by Leeds City Council ticket machine.

Read the full article here

Parking wardens: Hull City Council to take on Vinci Park workers

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Hull City Council is to take over parking enforcement work.

Private contractor Vinci Park has been delivering the service on behalf of the authority since 2006.

The firm's current contract expires at the end of January.

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Hackney Council accused of running parking “protection racket”

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Hackney Council has been accused of running a “protection racket” after a second council parking scheme consultation in less than a year landed on residents’ doorsteps.

Plans to introduce parking controls along Cassland Road in South Hackney and side roads to the north were rejected last December, but the new questionnaire comes as a result of popular demand, according to the council.

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No cheaper rate for short-term parking at hospital, at least until 2015

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Hospital chiefs have rejected calls from borough politicians to lower the contentiously high parking charges at Watford general hospital.

A hospital boss told councillors last night that there will be no change to charges until at least 2015.

Eric Fehily, associate director of infrastructure at West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust, said the trust was locked into a contract with the company managing it car parks and could not alter its fees until it ends.

Read the full article here

Cost of enforcement exceeds fines

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The issuing of parking tickets in East Devon could lose £3.6million of taxpayers’ cash over four years.

A recent Freedom of Information (FOI) request by the Journal has revealed the financial cost of traffic wardens, since parking enforcement was transferred from the police to the district council in spring 2008.

But East Devon District Council (EDDC) bosses insist that parking enforcement is not seen as a ‘cash cow’, and is vital to avoid parking chaos.

Read the full article here

£100 fine for parking error was too much

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HAVING read various letters on bus lane driving and the £60 fine I had to laugh.

I recently parked in Keaton Road car park, Ivybridge. I put a £2 ticket (2 hours) on my car and went over the road for a dental appointment. After 17 minutes I returned to find a ticket on my windscreen, reason: exceeds marked bay area. How much? £100. I was shocked. The car park was almost empty so I was in no one's way. I am a pensioner and this is a lot of money to me.

As it is a private car park, the owners P.P.S can charge what they like. It is a disgrace and I hope this letter serves as a warning to anyone thinking of parking in Keaton Road. I never will again.

I would like to make it clear that I am not complaining about the fine, just the exorbitant amount!

Free charge for electric cars at council car park

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Drivers can recharge their electric cars for free during the winter months.

Central Beds Council has installed an electric car parking charging pointing at its headquarters in Chicksands.

Two electric vehicles can be charged at any one time using the charging posts. And until March 2013 members of the public can charge their cars for free thanks to national funding.

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Car cloners are to blame for my parking ticket, says OAP

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A RETIRED company director who is appealing against a parking fine insists his car has been "cloned".

Gordon Palmer was told his car was seen parked on double yellow lines in Derby.

The city council even sent him pictures of the offending ice-blue Toyota Yaris.

While the registration plate in the images matches that on his car, Mr Palmer, 73, says some minor differences show it is not his car.

Read the full article here

Lynda wins her fight to overturn car park fine

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A shopper has won her battle to overturn a parking fine slapped on her car after she accepted a stranger’s ticket.

Lynda Double was ordered to pay £80 after a fellow driver offered her his ticket which still had an hour and a half to run.

Read the full article here

Hospital parking coins in £478,000

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PATIENTS, visitors and staff at St Mary’s Hospital paid out £478,000 in parking charges last year.

Figures released last month reveal the average hospital trust collects £1.055 million a year in parking charges, more than twice the amount ten years ago, and some pocket nearly £4 million.

Read the full article here

Find-a-parking space app could be helping traffic wardens target your car

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Metereye technology beams signal from sensor under road just before space becomes free

A parking sensor promoted as tool to help drivers find free spaces could also enable traffic wardens to dish out more fines. 

Motoring organisations have warned the Metereye system could help wardens make a beeline to vehicles which have overstayed a parking space.

Read the full article here 

NHS hospitals charge patients up to £3 an hour for parking

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One in three NHS hospitals has increased car parking charges for patients and visitors, official figures have disclosed.

Some hospitals tripled fees for patients and their friends and relations, with a handful now charging £3 an hour for parking.

Parking charges are feared to affect elderly people and their families in particular because they are among the most likely to need to drive to hospital, either as patients or visitors.

Read the full article here

Father to fight daughter's late night parking ticket

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A FATHER is challenging a parking ticket issued in a deserted car park at midnight.

Paignton student Rebecca Moody parked at the Bridge retail car park at Lowes Bridge, Torquay, while she walked to the neighbouring McDonalds.

Her father, Anthony Moody, (pictured) was stunned when she told him of a £60 fine issued, photos supposedly showing the car parked breaking the rules.

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Croydon Council making £12 per minute from parking fines

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DRIVERS in Croydon are being fined £12 every minute for parking offences, the Advertiser can reveal.

A total of £6.3 million was collected by Croydon Council in parking tickets – Penalty Charge Notices (PCNs) – between April 1 2011 and March 31 this year.

This is up around £500,000 on the figure for the previous year.

Read the full article here

Bournemouth's parking meters still not being enforced

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JUST IN CASE: Scott Major using a parking meter
 in Bourne Avenue, Bournemouth, even though
 enforcement has come to a grinding halt

BOURNEMOUTH’S parking meters are still not being enforced while an investigation is carried out.

No on-street parking fines have been issued for almost two months, after an appeal against a penalty charge notice revealed possible errors in Traffic Regulation Orders.

But the council is still advising motorists to pay for their on-street parking and is warning that enforcement would be reinstated at any time.

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Cutbacks run traffic police off the road

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A sharp fall in the number of officers across the country is sparking fears of a rise in crime and bad driving.

The new I-Spy book of cars gives young spotters 30 points if they see a Ferrari or Maserati, but the next edition may have to include another increasingly rare sight: police traffic officers. 

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