Schools need to be included
Dear Editor
I was thoroughly disgusted, for a second time, to receive a penalty charge notice at The Peak in Stirling.
I was deemed to have been parking illegally. However, the first time it happened I submitted a challenge because I had been given a ticket for parking in an area in which, on subsequent Saturdays, cars similarly parked received no ticket.
Parking officials told me they couldn’t comment on other people’s vehicles.
What they should be commenting on is the fact that there is clearly insufficient parking to cater for Peak users and football supporters visiting Forthbank on Saturdays during the football season.
Drivers trying to find a space to park at this time become a very easy target for traffic wardens.
I can understand tickets being issued to those who abuse the system by parking in disabled spaces,parking in bays where a ticket is required to be displayed,causing an obstruction to others, etc.
What I can’t condone is tickets issued willy nilly at the attendants’ discretion.
When I was ticketed, I wasn’t parked in a disabled bay, nor was I causing an obstruction or failing to display a paid ticket on windscreen as there is no requirement to do so at The Peak.
Having read in the Observer (September 12, 2018) that Stirling Council raked in £195,000 in parking fines between May and December, 2017, I know from bitter personal experience how such a total can be reached.
Brian McEwan By email Dear Sir,
I read with interest Stirling Council’s four priorities for their ambitious and commendable Healthy Living strategy, and in particular the first priority: “ensuring physical education, physical activity and sport are embedded within all educational establishments”.
However, Councillor Dodds hits the nail on the head when he says long-term strategies are simply window dressing when the essentials are not in place - in this case insufficient teachers of physical education in the council’s nursery and primary schools.
Children need to be taught the foundations of movement and physical competence so that they acquire the requisite skills and importantly, the confidence in those skills, to participate in physical activity as a life-long pursuit if only for health reasons.
And so it is odd that the strategy has been developed with a wide range of partnership agencies but not the education service - the key to delivering on the first priority.
Chris Wood Stirling