David Marks, 77, was fined for stopping on a clearway - but he hadn't.
A Maidenhead man has called for RBWM to brush up its training after receiving an incorrect parking ticket from its enforcement team last month.
David Marks is a blue-badge holder, which allows him to park on double yellow lines, as long as there are no other restrictions.
He commonly does this at Nicholsons Lane off Frascati Way and never received a ticket previously – but got one in early December.
David, 77, was informed that this was because he had parked on a clearway, a stretch of road where it is forbidden to stop your car.
However, the retired Fujitsu employee maintains that he was parked ‘clearly outside’ the designated clearway.
Fortunately, David was able to prove that the parking enforcement team was incorrect and he was not, in fact, in the clearway zone.
Late in the month, on December 23, he received a ‘half-hearted apology from RBWM’ for issuing him an incorrect parking ticket.
Despite this eventually positive outcome, the Altwood Drive resident continues to have concerns over the process.
He felt it was clear that neither the parking attendant nor the parking enforcement manager had carried any form of checks to ensure the validity of the ticket.
He said: “This is disgraceful – issuing tickets without doing their due diligence.
“Had I not carried out some work myself and challenged the ticket, it would have stood. I could have been someone who just paid the fine.
“I feel as though RBWM are issuing tickets regardless and waiting for people to complain.
He added: “It’s a schoolboy error – this is down to a lack of training, lack of checking and proper administration. Those responsible should be held to account.”
David has been unhappy with the level of interaction with the council.
“All the correspondence I’ve had has been passing the buck,” he said.
He wanted some assurance that RBWM would brush up the parking enforcement training but has not heard back from the the council about this.
“It would be nice if RBWM would say, ‘We’ve investigated this and it won’t happen again’,” he said.
After posting about his experiences on social media platform Nextdoor, a score of people responded.
Many shared similar experiences of feeling they had been issued erroneous parking tickets, some of which also took weeks to rectify. David said it was ‘amazing’ how many people had similar issues with parking enforcement.
In correspondence with David in late December and early January, RBWM’s parking enforcement team apologised to him, saying: “The civil enforcement officers are trained on the regulations, however human error does occur occasionally.
“We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience caused to you.
“This matter has been escalated to the managers for both our admin team and the enforcement team.
“Both managers have spoken to the people involved with this error to ensure that they understand the error and to be aware of this going forward.”
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