Before Swindon Borough Council start to enjoy reaping the bounty of new revenue from parking fines in Swindon, perhaps someone should scrutinise the provision for parking that SBC makes.
The fact is that in Old Town and the town centre at least, the provision of residents parking is so woefully inadequate that people have no choice than to park illegally.
Swindon Borough Council is more than happy to take additional money from (council) tax-paying residents once a year, more often if you have friends/family who wish to visit, yet fail to provide sufficient space in which all their paying customers can park. Any private business could not get away with this. Sell a service, with non refundable payment up front, and then fail to provide sufficient resources to meet the sales. This would be scandal enough, but now, add to this the ability to control issuing further charges against people unable to comply solely due to the service providers lack of provision, and you have an untenable situation. You'd be featured on the next series of Rogue Traders along with the dodgy private clamping firms that everyone complains so much about.
Take a look along any of the narrow streets of the town centre or Old Town on any evening or weekend and you will see all residents parking areas fully utilised, and the unlucky ones who failed to return home between 5pm and 5.30pm having to park on double yellows, single yellows, limited waiting and pavements.
Before there is a flood of angry response from safety conscious people about parking illegally, everyone acknowledges the risks this creates, and most therefore make efforts to keep entrances and exits clear for emergency vehicles as it would most likely be our homes that the fire brigade or ambulance were trying to reach, but ask Swindon Borough Council this where are we supposed to park?
We, like everyone else in the country, have a Prescott-given right to own cars, and also have to pay more than others for this privilege as it is. Please no more witch-hunt on us as the fall out of SBC's Residents' Parking failure.
Car driver
Old Town
Swindon
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