Tree pruning scam stung me for a whopping £130
Published: 29 September, 2011
• I AM writing to let you know about yet another money-grabbing campaign by Camden Council’s parking team.
On Friday September 23 I arrived at my car at 8.45am to see a parking attendant putting a ticket on my car legally parked in Falkland Road, Kentish Town.
I was told that the ticket was because of tree-pruning works being carried out on the street.
However there was no tree where I was parked and the tree-pruning was on the other side of the street.
I asked where the sign was warning of the parking suspension and I was shown a notice right at the other end of the street tied to a lamp-post and this was for the whole street.
The parking ticket is for a whopping £130 not the usual £20 or £30.
This is equivalent to more than two days’ work for me and many other people.
What is more is that the whole area was covered in these parking suspensions, not immediately obvious because there were so few notices, that is until I saw the other cars covered in tickets.
There were also tow-away trucks taking some of the cars away.
We pay more than £100 per year for the supposed privilege of parking on the street, where there are fewer parking spaces every year.
And then they take away most of the parking places at the same time, instead of staggering the work as they do with road improvements.
The trees are being heavily pruned while they are still bearing their leaves which will leave them weakened in the future.
The trees should be pruned after they have lost their leaves.
Also I can’t see any reason why they have to do this work all at the same time for the whole area and why they have to charge such a huge amount for the parking ticket.
I am writing to your paper because any complaints to Camden Council will fall on deaf ears and end with the usual lame comments.
We have no other recourse when the council, who are so obviously making so much money from these parking scams, will not investigate or stop them.
I wanted to know if there are any other neighbours in the area who have been affected and wanted to make a group complaint.
THERESA O'NEILL
Fortess Road, NW5
Comments
Tree Pruning scam
Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 2011-09-29 19:08.I was interested to read Theresa O'Neill's letter about getting a parking ticket because of the tree pruning. Almost exactly the same thing happened to me last year. A notice went up outside my house stating that the road had to be cleared on a certain date for tree clearing. The numbered houses did not include mine, so I left my car parked outside my home (not near a tree). On the day of the pruning (a Monday), I found a parking attendant sticking a ticket on my car, and when I protested and pointed to the sign outside my house (which did not include my house number), he pointed to a sign two hundred yards away at the end of the street, which did mention my house number but which had definitely not been up in the weeks before, as the other notice had. I believe it was put up over the weekend, and as I was away for the weekend, I never had a chance to see it. I think someone at the council put this notice up having realised their mistake in not mentioning my house number in the original notice.
I wrote to the council, explaining what had happened, with photographs of the notices outside my house and the one two hundred yards away but my appeal was ignored. I just did not have the energy to take it further but I still burn with rage about it. I do not think it was a scam but simply the council covering up an error and then being totally unreasonable about my very reasonable appeal. I am not surprised to see that it's still going on now.
Emma Dally
Falkland Road
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