Daily Mail

The town that ran out of parking tickets

- Daily Mail Reporter

A TOWN’S traffic wardens have been unable to issue parking fines for a week – after running out of tickets. Lucky motorists in Hartlepool were let off scot-free when the council’s usual ticket supplier went bust. The council manages more than 2,000 parking spaces and, based on previously published figures, it is estimated around £100,000 a year is collected in fines – an average of about £2,000 a week. A Hartlepool Borough Council spokesman said: ‘Our regular supplier of printed Penalty Charge Notice tickets has gone into liquidatio­n, something officers were not aware of until they tried to place a repeat order. ‘Officers found a new company and placed an order on Thursday, May 17, and were told delivery would be made within ten days. Unfortunat­ely, this did not happen and we ran out on May 30.’ The issue came to light when a visitor to a seaside car park at Seaton Carew was given a warning, not a ticket, by an enforcemen­t officer. But the parking free-for-all is over. New tickets were delivered on Wednesday.

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