Surely in this day and age penalty charges could be sorted out easily

IWOULD like to thank the Bristol Post for helping me to understand the reason why Bristol City Council is unable to control their finances.

Conor Gogarty’s article on page 8 of the June 18 edition regarding bus lane fines explained it all.

If the council is unable to correct an obvious error in charging motorists penalty fines of £60 for driving in a bus lane when they were made aware that the reason this happened between the hours of 4pm and 7pm on April 3 2021 was because of a police diversion due to the Kill the Bill demonstration, then what chance have they got in dealing with their annual budget?

When Wayne Smith, featured in the article, received a penalty notice for driving in a bus lane he immediately contacted Bridewell Police Station and obtained confirmation via email from them that there was a diversion in Baldwin Street at the time in question which required motorists to enter the bus lane.

Armed with this information Mr Smith sent these details into the council offices requesting they remove the penalty charge. In my naivety I would have thought that there would have been a question flagged in the department dealing with traffic offences prior to Mr Smith having to do this. The question being why over this particular three-hour period I assumed a large number of motorists were travelling in the bus lane and who were then subsequently given penalty notices.

The council spokesman told the Post why Mr Smith’s fine could not immediately be cancelled; they were told all fines during that period would be checked on a case to case basis providing they notified the council in writing and then only after two further notices had been sent out.

Why on earth has Mr Smith got to wait until he has received two further letters from them escalating his fine to £120 before he can appeal the fine? Surely in this day and age the computer system that issues the notifications can be programmed to cancel ALL fines during that threehour period and not waste more time and money sending out three sets of notices and requiring the motorists to write in to ask for the penalties to be rescinded?

If this is an example of the way Bristol City Council runs its services on a day-to-day basis and making “a mountain out of a mole hill” on a minor issue such as this and generating loads of paperwork, then I now understand why millions of pounds of ratepayers’ money have been wasted over several years by the city council on the likes of Bristol Energy, The Beacon (Colston Hall) refurbishment and its continuing inability to fill in potholes on our roads despite all the money they gather from parking fines and bus lane infringements. Andrew Nunn