Parking chiefs to pay out more refunds

The Journal
Wednesday March 8, 2006

Under fire parking chiefs at a North council yesterday announced they will pay out more refunds to motorists after their tickets were found to have technical flaws.
Sunderland Council says it will not chase up drivers who have not paid fines where their tickets do not display a date of issue. The decision follows a case involving Bury Council, in which an adjudicator ruled a penalty charge notice must have a date to comply with legislation.
However, Sunderland insists that anyone who has already paid their tickets is not entitled to their money back. Only 46 tickets will be refunded, which were issued after the council received legal advice on the matter on November 25 last year.
That date has been set despite the council receiving a circular from the National Parking Adjudication Service on May 4 last year informing it of the Bury decision, which affects authorities who run their own parking enforcement systems.
On June 14, Sunderland's assistant city solicitor advised NCP that tickets should include a date of issue. By August last year, NCP had still not done this, though the technicality has now been corrected.
Sunderland Council last night insisted that any tickets without a date of issue that were paid up before November 25 were perfectly legal, and that it was going further than other authorities in the same position.
But parking campaigner Neil Herron, who has pursued the issue, said: "Finally, after pushing and pushing them to admit they were wrong, we now have a partial admission."