Government Refuse to Acknowledge Public Parking Enforcement Concerns

It is bizarre that in response to a Press Release expressing concerns about the number of erroneous parking fines being issued and the waste of both public and police time that this is causing, Government should focus a third of its reply on irrelevant typographical errors on social media. It further accuses Trevor Hammond, GSD Transport Spokesman of hypocrisy, but then fails to describe any hypocrisy. Government really does seem to be running scared on this and many other issues and has lost all credibility.

Trevor Hammond said “Gibraltar has always been a place where a degree of tolerance and common sense has been shown when dealing with issues such as parking. If Government wishes to adopt a zero tolerance policy that is a decision for them and it is for them to deal with the consequent public backlash. Motorists are fed up of being fined for having a wheel on a line or returning to a vehicle moments too late to find that a warden has been waiting for that moment to issue a ticket. These are people’s real experiences. The Government appears to have no concept of the difference between practical and sensible enforcement, which has always occurred, and zero tolerance, punish all offences no matter how minor, which is their policy

“There is no question that this policy is raking them in a lot of money, approximately three quarters of a million pounds a year, so of course they are going to defend it, they need to find income from all sorts of sources to pay off the debt mountain they have built up, but at least they could be honest about it.

“Of course in this grab for cash, punish all offences world, too many mistakes are being made; 933 in a little over six months, and these are the ones actually challenged. Many more mistaken parking tickets are no doubt paid because people lack the time to make a challenge. That’s 933 occasions when members of both the public and the police have had to use their valuable time correcting mistakes. Government cares so little about this that they suggest it is normal for so many mistakes to happen. I would say it is unacceptable and must stop”