Wednesday 22 July 2009

EVEN TDC TRAFFIC WARDENS FIND THE NEW PARKING CHARGES CONFUSING

This is a picture of a TDC Warden in Station Road, ringing his 'bosses' in Cecil Square and pointing out to them the confusion on the plastic enveloped charges list that have been attached to ticket machines. He couldn't make sense of it, so how the general public can, is beyond me.
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Let me explain. Mrs B wanted to shop in Birchington this morning as she feels she should support our local High Streets rather than Westwood Cross wherever possible. On this parking ticket machine, the normal charges list sticker had been removed and it took me some time to notice a plastic envelope with the new linear charges in attached at the side. It clearly stated that for 90p Bertie could park for 1hr 30 mins. So, thinking that TDC's basic grasp of Arithmetic was poor but to my benefit, I thrust in my 90p at 11.16 (which I think is extortionate anyway and must drive people to free parking at Westwood Cross) and out popped the ticket below.

So the price list was wrong. The machine gave me only 1hr for my 90p (the correct linear rate at 1.5p per minute). Back to the list and according to TDC £1.30 and 90p will both purchase 1hr 30 minutes of parking. I drew the attention of a passing TDC Warden to this discrepancy and error.
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It seems to me that TDC needs to sharpen its act up. It rolls out this linear charge business and cannot even get the information right? So now they will have to go round and replace the information on charges. The serious issue about this simple mistake by TDC is that its Parking Wardens also issue fines!
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TDC might like to go and see how good linear charging is run by Canterbury. Clear information and machines that do the job so that you can match your money in to exactly the time you want.

1 comment:

Parking Fine Rants in London UK said...

I hear about this all the time. If only local councils would make things simple, easy to understand and follow. Instead, by making things difficult, this only leads to more problems for both parties involved...by this I mean the local council and residents parking on the streets.