Are too many parking fines unfairly imposed?

THANK goodness for our lovely Chichester District Council. Here in East Wittering we paid for a ‘pay and display’ parking ticket, but subsequently got a parking fine because our ticket flipped over as we closed the car door on a windy day. We appealed, showing the ticket and the fine was cancelled — but with a warning that we must be careful in windy weather as if it happened again they wouldn’t be so lenient. Clearly East Sussex County Council (Mail) is more aggressive and intransigent. J. NEAL, Crawley, Sussex. MY Parking ticket was blown down between the windscreen and the dashboard as i closed my car door. When i was fined, i appealed, including submitting a scan of the ticket, but my appeal was denied. i now regularly use Blu-Tack to secure the ticket. i’m pretty sure the whole appeal procedure is a sham: the private companies running the fines procedure on behalf of local authorities are obliged to ensure that every fine issued produces a result. it’s their livelihood. ANTHONY F. LOWE, West Bridgford, Notts. THOSE who bemoan the escalating time and costs of council pursuit of parking fines ‘hope common sense will prevail’ (Mail), but it’s they who have no common sense. When buying a parking ticket, the onus is on the driver to double-check it’s legible to the parking attendants. I hold no brief for parking companies, but granting the benefit of the doubt because a ticket has ‘flipped over in the wind’ would open gates for unscrupulous motorists to place expired, underpaid or otherwise invalid tickets face down, and, if prosecuted, cite this case as a legal precedent. FRANCIS HARVEY, Bristol.