Victory for the little guy

A couple of days after Julie had baby Charlotte I went into town to visit her at the Princess Royal Maternity Hospital. En route I swung past the deli in Candleriggs to get her some nice sandwiches. Parked outside the home of Stussy t-shirts in Glasgow, Dr Jives, I came back to the car ten minutes later to find a £30 penalty charge notice, placed neatly next to my pay-and-display ticket. Drove round (in retrospect quite unwisely) looking for the warden to lamp. Called Glasgow City Council on my mobile and thus began a five month battle with the head of the Parking Department, one Mr David Parkin (no pun intended). I had parked in a marked bay, bought and displayed a valid ticket, but still some target-monkey thought it was worth a punt putting a ticket on my car. Throughout this fiasco I've often wondered how many people would just put up and pay the fine to end the agro? Anyway, I wrote to the Council and they rejected my appeal, in effect calling me a liar. You can park in the marked bays on Candleriggs, but not in the loading bay marked areas. Makes no odds to me, as I was in the third bay out of five, so I had nothing to apologise for. The matters closed, pay up or we're taking you to Court was the tone of the increasingly threatening letters from the Council. The matters closed. Turns out you do have the right to independent adjudication - via the Scottish Parking Appeals Service. The Council didn't mention this, but I found it by myself and a few letters later the SPAS said they'd consider my appeal and any judgement would be final. So after five months of wrangling I finally got a letter from SPAS saying that the Council had (surprise surprise) decided not to contest my appeal and the matter was now closed. The Government was talking recently about compensation for successfully appealed fines - I'd be happy with an apology from the jobs-for-life-gravy-train-unaccountable-jobsworths at Glasgow City Council. Not that I'm still bitter.