AS a recently appointed town councillor I noted the expressed discontent about enforcement of parking control on loading bay use as reported in the Times (August 27).

Reasonable people accept the need for parking control along with an appropriately applied and just process to deter rule breakers.  However, Judith Murray (Farley Menswear) and Jenny Elsmore (Odds and Suds) have expressed concern over the behaviour of civil enforcement officers (CEOs) who have ticketed for loading bay misuse.

On August 20 I was using a liveried van in a loading bay and was ticketed after being observed for five minutes by a CEO.  I asked the CEO why he had ticketed and was told he could not see evidence of unloading.  I challenged by letter to Devon County Council and explained the circumstances and six days later a rejection citing ‘insufficient evidence supplied’ arrived.   I have since provided documentary evidence of unloading and am waiting for a reply.

Setting aside the onerous requirement to provide further evidence, it is clear the CEO had, in my case, failed to apply the guidelines of ten minutes observed inactivity around a liveried vehicle.  The experience begs the question: Is parking control managed properly and justly if the process involves second line rejection after incorrect application of the rules by first-line staff? 

Having concern for the vitality of Tavistock, it suggests the CEOs are at least inconsistent when applying the rules.  However, from the reported experience of others, the same officers are, it seems, behaving in an ill-considered, irrational and over-zealous way.   Furthermore, the penalty process appears to back up first-line staff even though they have, from the computer backed record, acted wrongly.

The pattern of loading bay use is observable to anyone who cares to spend the time.  It follows that CEOs, whose job is to facilitate proper use of all parking spaces, should exercise appropriate professional judgement.  When perverse enforcement behaviour is observed and reported the service must moderate or those who act outside their remit will cause justifiable ‘outrage’.

Tavistock Town Council is the first tier of civic service provision and parking is the responsibility of the county council at the third tier.   The county council’s control of services is remote from the lives of Tavistock people and there is evidently a need for town councillors to be activists and to convey people’s concern up the civic chain.  I hope that councillors will join me in raising matters when civic services fail to deliver.   Regarding the operation of local parking control, it seems at present to be aggravating the lives of ordinary people rather than helping.

Cllr Paul Williamson

Tavistock