[andrewb]

Does anyone actualy think they have a positive impact on our town? After all it's our town, and I havn't met many people in favour of them. We need some sort of restrictions, I mean some places it's just plain obvious that people shouldn't be able to park. If it's a genuinly busy street which isn't wide enough to allow double parking and traffic flowing freely then of course this causes a nuisance. However I don't personaly see a problem with people parking on quiet streets like Dutton Street (Between Old mcdonalds and blockbuster), its close to town and helpfull for quick shoppers. I used this example simply because I already knew the parking rules (10am-4pm no parking).

I do not think that the way to tackle genuine parking problems (such as the narrow busy streets and bus stops etc) is to wham someone a £60 fine on their first offence, usualy without even talking to them about it, because we all know how sneaky the majority of parking wardens are. I've often seen them hiding behind other cars or buildings waiting until people have moved from their cars etc. To encourage the wardens to ticket cars by giving them bonuses only adds to this sort of ticketing. You may say "People shouldn't be parked there in the first place" but this is exactly why I am making this post, because half the time theres nothing wrong with someone stopping there for a while.

In the great scheme of things, the £60 fine is just taking money from people who are quite possibly otherwise law abiding citizens. If you put that in line with antisocial behaviour and such, these people mostly get nothing, because they're not an easy target like a parked car.

I have started a poll because I want to know just how many people think they have a positive inpact on our town. I noticed one on the parkwise website where 94% of people disagreed with "Has Parkwise made a positive difference to improve the flow of traffic in your area ?".

Ps. Who is it that has control over parkwise, is it LCC or HBC?