Dear Editor, Your article on parking fines made interesting reading, “Streets top of parking fine table”.
Parking Control Plus were awarded the £1.9 million city council contract in 2001, but just two years later in 2003, parking fines income had gone up by 124 per cent, earning a windfall £9.9 million bonanza.
Alum Rock Road, in Nechells, always tops the fines list, annually earning a staggering £334,620, with other tickets issued around the city regularly topping 164,000.
An irrelevant side street in my own area of Kings Heath, Institute Road, annually earns over £95,580, with parking wardens waiting until the parking regulation moves over to the other side of the road at 1pm, they then issue tickets and then speed off on their scooters.
Nothing is done for smooth city traffic flow on the congested Pershore Road, the horrendous Belgrave Road island and joining Bristol Road lights, just easy pickings in quiet city side streets are their targets.
Birmingham has a deserved reputation for handing out fines. In 2004, 175,000 tickets were issued, and of those that appealed, an astounding number were thrown out by the appeals tribunal board based in Manchester.
Whilst these easy pickings go on with a lucrative fines system, the city grinds to a daily rush hour halt, with the Birmingham City Council and Parking Control Plus playing their part in this grossly embarrassing incompetence.
Mike Kelly
Kings Heath
Birmingham
