Let’s hope the wardens read parking plea

Getting a parking fine grates. Getting a parking fine when you’ve got the right ticket or permit grates even more. This driver who parked in the Rosemary Lane car was forced to put two notes in his car to direct wardens to the rather obvious permit in his window. It reads: “Traffic wardens. I have a permit. Please look! Stop fining me.” Regular readers will recall that I received a ticket from a private car parking enforcement firm because the corner of my permit was bent upwards and this meant it “wasn’t clearly displayed”. After refusing to pay, I endured a year of threats of legal action. This ended only when I stopped communicating with the firm after saying I would be happy to see them in court. Let’s hope the Rosemary Lane driver’s window note has the desired effect and he stops getting tickets.

Next Thursday sees the council hold a special meeting to discuss the prospect of an east Kent super council. If it became reality, it would comprise Canterbury plus our neighbours in Thanet, Shepway, Ashford and Dover. The truth is that since the ultimate aim of this project is to save money, then there is virtually no doubt it will happen.

Council leader Simon Cook will be among those at The Guildhall at 7pm on October 6 explaining the super council idea. The Conservative received a spectacular dressing down from John Newell of Bekesbourne in last week’s letters page. But it wasn’t for a policy or a statement or the way he is running the authority. Nope, it was for the fact that he wasn’t smartly dressed in a photograph at the council offices. I’ve said it before. We at the Kentish Gazette are blessed with some of the finest letter writers a local newspaper could hope for. They’re intelligent, interesting and best of all surprising.