Parking outside the House!

I bought my house almost twenty five years ago because the mortgage runs out next year. In all of this time we have parked one car in the driveway and one on the frontage. Suddenly in July my daughter and my wife received a flurry (two each in two days) of tickets for parking outside of the house.

It has subsequently transpired that in March 2009 a notice was placed in the local paper that passed the enforcement of parking regulations from the police to the council. Seven households are affected by this change of enforcement because we are the houses who have double yellow lines outside the house. The rest of the road (200 yards) can still park on the extended tarmac surface off the road and infront of their houses. There is no obstruction to pedestrians, no obstruction of view and no danger to anyone but the council have decided to prosecute. Only seven households are affected but nobody informed us.

We got annoyed. This charge is unfair because we have conducted our lives in accordance with the police attitude to this strip of tarmac. We had our drive paved and if we had known that we could not park on the tarmac outside of the house then we would have created three parking spaces.

There is a legal precedent which supports the defence that if no problem has occurred despite the legal white lines then people should not be prosecuted. We are fortunate that we have, in our family, someone who is well versed in the law and he is advising us.

These penalties are unfair. These penalties are a ludicrous attempt by the local authority to revenue generate from seven families. The press will soon be involved if common sense does not prevail. The battle lines are drawn.