It was an indication of changing priorities when, in 2000, parking restrictions were taken out of the hand of the police authorities, who paid the traffic wardens, and placed into the hands of local authorities, who pay the parking attendants. Traffic wardens were tasked to keep traffic flowing and as such could use discretion to move people along rather than fine them. If the former was more sensible they also had the authority to do so. Parking attendants however have no such authority. They are tasked to ticket illegally parked only. It does nothing to ease traffic flow to fine an illegally parked driver. It does help to get the vehicle out of the way.

While I agree wholeheartedly with all the comments about illegal parking I also feel parking fines and fees are being as seriously abused as parking restrictions are. It is wrong for people to park illegally or inconsiderately. Our local co-op has a huge and mostly empty car park, yet people will insist, as Liz says, on parking on the double yellows directly in front of the hole in the wall, also severly restricting entry to the disabled parking spots. I wish there was a permanent attendant to fine those ignorant drivers.

On the other hand our local shopping precinct, built on land given to 'the people of Swinton' by the local gentry many years ago has now been sold to a private landowner. Land, that was ours, has been sold by our elected representatives to the very rich Peel estates. They now charge us to park there. The shops on the precinct, who pay rent to Peel estates, and the people who live above the shops as well as visitors to the shops now cannot park anywhere nearby without paying this wholly corrupt stealth tax, to NCP, who pay Peel estates for the privilege. Oh, btw, you also have to key in your car reg into the ticket machines so you cannot transfer your ticket on exit. Meaning the space you used is paid for again by someone else.

There is a whole world of difference between the young, fit and, usually, BMW drivers, on the yellows outside the co-op and the old lady who is fined £30 for mis-keying her registration and is bullied into paying up by the parking authority because they need the revenue.

There. Rant over. Feel much better now. Think I'll go and have that Polish beer...

Cheers

Dave