‘We won’t pay parking fines’

1:17pm Thursday 8th May 2008

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IRATE disabled motorists have vowed not to pay fines which they claim were slapped on their vehicles incorrectly by Wyre Forest's new-style traffic wardens.

Angina and emphysema sufferer, Hayden Roberts, of Stourport, was furious when he was given a £30 fine for parking in a restricted time zone in the town's High Street by a civil enforcement officer.

As a blue badge holder, he is allowed to park on double yellow lines and although he knew that disabled parking was not allowed between 8am and 9am and 4.30pm and 6.30pm, he did not realise it was also banned between 11am and 3pm.

Mr Roberts, 64, who was forced to give up his job as a carpet worker after a heart bypass operation, claimed the signs on the buildings were not obvious and should have been on posts by the kerbside.

"I have been driving for 48 years and my wife for 52 years - that's 100 years in all - and we have never had fines for anything. I've parked in the High Street on many occasions without any problems and I could see the warden when I parked but I couldn't see the signs," he said.

He is planning to take his appeal to the parking adjudicator in Manchester but a Wyre Forest District Council spokesman said restriction plates could be placed on highway furniture such as lampposts, freestanding posts or adjacent buildings every 10 metres.

Meanwhile, Stourport pensioners, Audrey and Ian Grant, of Mill Road, are appealing against a fine they picked up in Worcester Street, Kidderminster, for not displaying a blue badge.

They claim the vehicle's disabled tax disc, making them exempt from paying the annual road fund fee, should have stopped the issuing a ticket.

The disabled time clock was on display but the blue badge belonging to 76-year-old Mrs Grant, who suffers from rheumatoid arthritis, angina and diabetes, had run out and a replacement was on order.

Mr Grant, 75, a retired electrical engineer, said: "In some parts of the country, the blue badge is not recognised but the disabled tax disc gives certain rights on parking and this should have been known by the warden."

A council spokesman said: "An excise disc that is issued to a disabled person does not restrict the driving of that vehicle to a disabled person only, therefore it is not possible for the civil enforcement officers to ascertain whether there is an entitlement to a valid blue badge or not, simply from viewing the tax disc."

He added that a valid blue badge should be displayed at all times when the permit holder is present and the vehicle is parked in a restricted area.