Our black and blue meanies
Hamilton parking attendants on receiving end of ‘sickening’ abuse
More than a third of violent attacks on South Lanarkshire Council’s ‘blue meanies’ have taken place in Hamilton in the last year.
Shocking new information, released from the local authority this week, has revealed that parking attendants are on the receiving end of some appalling behaviour from the public.
South Lanarkshire Council say violent attacks on the people who try to ensure that motorists park responsibly has increased.
Incidents across the area have included parking attendants being spat on, punched, subjected to racial abuse, being having their head banged against railings and even having vehicles driven at them.
In the past year, there have been eight separate incidents recorded by the parking attendants that have been particularly distressing.
Three of them have been in the Hamilton area, four in Rutherglen/ Cambuslang and one in East Kilbride.
South Lanarkshire parking attendants have been wearing CCTV cameras since 2012 as a deterrent to attacks, but not only are assaults continuing, they are becoming more severe.
Councillor John Anderson, Chair of Community and Enterprise, said: “Parking attendants are merely enforcing legislation that is set up to ensure that motorists do not park in a way that disadvantages or is unfair to other drivers or pedestrians, so although verbal abuse – including screaming in the faces of people – is fairly long-standing, it is still completely unacceptable and would not be tolerated by people in any other line of work.
“What is even more worrying now, is that physical assaults are becoming more common.
“When parking attendants are being placed in situations where they are at risk of injury or their lives are threatened, we have reached a sickening level.
“The numbers are irrelevant – even one incident of this type is one too many and it is something that is completely unacceptable.
“We refer all such incidents to Police Scotland and I would appeal to anyone who does witness assaults against our staff to step forward and help us get the evidence needed to stop this type of incident from occurring again.”