Evening parking crackdown "killing trade" (From Salisbury Journal)

Evening parking crackdown "killing trade"

9:34am Thursday 11th August 2011 in Show Some Sense campaign By Annie Riddle

TRAFFIC wardens working longer hours are making life difficult for small businesses and hitting takeaway trade.

The wardens have been ordered to start an hour earlier, at 7am, and finish two hours later, at 8pm.

Wiltshire Council denies it is a money-making exercise and says it is responding to complaints about inconsiderate parking.

At Yorkshire Fisheries in Fisherton Street, Robin Tuttiett said: “Basically we get traffic wardens until 8pm seven days a week.

My trade between 6pm and 8pm has dropped 50 per cent.

“I don’t blame the wardens.

Their instructions are apparently to ‘ticket anything’.”

At KK’s Chinese takeaway in Fisherton Street, proprietor Kwai Chan said: “For all these years the wardens have stopped at 6pm and there’s been no trouble.

“Why, suddenly, these extra hours? Is it really to do with money rather than safety?

“Customers have to drive around a couple of times to see if the wardens are coming. This game of cat and mouse makes life more difficult for everybody. It’s driving people away.”

John Richardson was threatened with a ticket for parking outside his chocolate shop in the High Street at 7.30pm to do some decorating.

He said: “There was no traffic, but I had to take the car up to Blue Boar Row, where there is free parking after 6pm, and then bring it back again later.

“Another man had parked outside Poundland, and he got a ticket. The wardens were going around in pairs.”

Sean Biggins, of Alijak’s cleaners, loads and unloads equipment in the High Street at 7pm three times a week. “Because I now have to move the van to a car park and back again, a 55-minute job turns into an hour and a half,” he said.

Margaret Romano got a ticket while she was ringing the bells in St Thomas’s Church early on a Sunday evening.

Her offence was to park in a loading bay in Silver Street after the shops closed.

“I have parked there most Sundays for years,”

said Ms Romano, the church’s tower captain.

“The stupid thing is, if I’d parked in the council car park it would have been free after 4pm. The whole attitude to parking is officious.”

A Wiltshire spokesman said the council gets many public complaints about illegal parking and in response, has changed wardens’ shift patterns.

They are not paid overtime.

Cabinet member for transport Dick Tonge said: “We would prefer not to issue any tickets, but will continue to do so if people park inconsiderately.”