Local residents have raised concerns about the Lancashire County Council’s management of Residents Parking Permits, after changing the terms and conditions of issue to no longer remind people they are about to expire.
Certain local streets have residents parking only, and those residents need to apply for a permit to park outside their property or close by. Several Lancaster streets are covered by such a scheme.
Since the parking permits went virtual last year, residents report Lancashire County Council have stopped sending email reminders for renewal, which they used to do.
“So unless you noted the date of your renewal, you’ll need to log in to their system to find out,” commented Richard Unwin on social media site NextDoor.
“This year, the reminder is getting a parking fine once the permit expires, which happened to me yesterday.
“Logging onto the website, they added an extra line to the Ts & Cs to say that no reminders will be sent.
“It seems a bit of a cheap trick to hide a sentence in the Terms – almost like the council are trying to catch you out,” he says. “You’d expect it from a cowboy parking operator, but not the council.”
Many residents are similarly unimpressed.
“They just rejected my PCN challenge on the grounds that the ‘no reminder’ policy was in the Ts&Cs, which it is,” noted Paul Sherwood, “but who looks there to check if they have changed since last year? And an email reminder is so easy to do given the electronic system they have built.
“It does seem that it’s underhand fundraising,” he suggested.
From 1st April 2018, Lancashire Parking Services, which is part of Lancashire County Council, took responsibility for issuing all on-street resident and visitor parking permits. Local provision for face to face and postal services for permits at Lancaster and Morecambe town halls and by the parking team were ended.
• Lancashire County Council’s list of streets with Residents Parking Schemes is here