Never a traffic Warden around when you want one

My blog this week is not going to be about cruising but about something happening in my day to day life, and is something which is starting to really get me annoyed. I don’t often see myself as one to complain however this week something or rather a certain car has made me so frustrated that I have felt the need to complain to the local council about it.

I live in an area in Chichester close to the city centre so my street has parking restrictions placed on it on Monday – Saturday, to stop the town workers taking up valuable resident spots whilst they are at work. The hours in my street are restricted from 10-11am and then again at 2pm-3pm, so to park in my street during these times I am required to have a permit which for a year costs £35 so not talking a huge sum of  money. However there has been a car that has now started to park in my street right outside the entrance to my block of flats on average 4 days a week. I have a feeling he might work for the council a he seems to know the Civil Enforcement Officers (as I got advised by the council was their correct title) only come round during the afternoon restrictions (and only if  in the area) so if he parks there in the morning and moves by 1:30pm – he will get a free parking space and also no ticket. The ironic thing is opposite is a great big pay and display car parking and you can also buy a monthly ticket for £40 to park in the car park.

This has been going on for about 2 months now and something inside me snapped this week, so after reporting the car on Monday over the phone and being advised someone would be round to issue a ticket in the morning and then never did, I felt compelled to write them an email on Wednesday when he was back again. I had heard nothing back so on Thursday when he had done the same again and yet again no ticket had been issued, I wrote to them again advising them they hadn’t been round for the last three mornings as no tickets had been issued and he was still parking there.

They did write back but just thanked me for bringing this to their attention and that they have such a big area to patrol – apparently 100km of lines to enforce over 300 square miles that they are not always possible to attend when the restrictions are on.  But thanked me for bringing it to their attention and will bear it in mind when they do their rotas.

I have seen on all these programmes on tv that there always loads of traffic wardens (Civil Enforcement Officers) popping up whenever you don’t want them to, so not sure why there is such a shortage in Chichester. Normally i wouldn’t mind but its been going on for too long now and if I hadn’t have renewed my residents permit you can bet they would have been round and  I would have been issued many tickets.  I also know last Sunday we had a triathlon event take place in Chichester and the traffic wardens were out in force booking everyone who had parked on the grass verges etc, so we do have them in Chichester just not on when you want one.

Do you experience a similar problem? any advice on what I should do?