The Chinese, theWest End and Dementia from Page 29


DennisMartin fromWorthing is 82


years old and has dementia. InNovember, his parking permit came due for renewal, but hemessed up the paperwork.He’s not driving anymore, but his car is parked on the road. Apparently when he returned the renewal notice, he forgot to enclose his disabled driver permit. As a result, his car started getting ticketed; he didn’t know because he is


housebound. By the time other family members realized what was happening, he had more than $3,500 in parking fines.Appeals to NSL, the council’s on- street parking contractors, have got jobs- worth responses. And despite explaining the situation,


supported by doctor’s letters, his niece, who is trying to help resolve the matter, has been told the only way to avoid the


charges is for her to attend a separate hearing for each of the 36 tickets in turn.


Well, there seems to be several


things wrong here. First, if a ticket is appealed, the


lawsays that the final decision iswith the council, not their contractors, so where is the council in all this? Sec- ond, if the adjudicator cancels the first ticket – and they almost certain- ly will when he hears the circum- stances – they are going to go with precedent and cancel all the others, so why keep taking Mr. Martin back to the adjudicator when the outcome is so predictable? Third, when was a contractor’s reputation or a munici- pality’s good name ever improved by beating up an invalid “because we can”?


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pletely lost the plot. In a blog, JVH reported that Westminster had been challenged over the legality of their diplomats’ parking spaces because they had followed the legally laid- down process in order to create the bays. They are being challenged to repay tickets issued to other drivers on these bays on the grounds that the restrictions had no legal status. Westminster’s response: “If any of


our diplomatic bayswere not approved, this was an oversight that has since been corrected. However, no reason- ably observant person could have thought that these bays were not solely reserved for diplomats.”Well, no, they weren’t, not if you haven’t done the paperwork. The signs are just litter; they have no status and nomeaning. This from the borough, which a


few months ago when told by an adju- dicator that their signs weren’t legal so they couldn’t enforce their parking, simply said, “We don’t agree” and car- ried on with an unlawful activity. The law is not optional.


Peter Guest is PT’s correspondent on all things European and Middle East. He can be reached at peterguestparking@hotmail.co.uk.


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