Brighton Parking Department,
I am writing to complain that none of the parking meters in Brighton and Hove give change.
Further-more, as unlike your website promises, neither do they allow users to pay for the amount of time required.
Please allow me to explain:
1, Anyone popping into town to drop a cheque into the bank or buy an essential piece of merchandise from the shops will on average complete the task in between 15 to 30 minutes.
The parking meters will not allow users to pay to park for either 15 or 30 minutes. Users are left with no choice but to pay for an hours parking regardless or whether they park for 5 minutes or 30 minutes.
2, To park up to an hour will cost £1.70 on most parking meters in the city. But if you haven’t the exact change, which many people haven’t, you are forced to put either a £2 coin, or £1.80 change into the meter.
As a result:
a, No change is given,
b, No extra time is given in reflection of the extra money taken.
3, The cities parking enforcement team would without hesitation, issue a parking fine if they find a vehicle which has out-stayed it’s allocated time by 5 minutes.
This means that even though a resident would have paid £2, for a fee of £1.70 up to one hour, and for whatever reason was delayed in getting back to their vehicle by 10 minutes, would be fined, even though they would have paid for the over 1 hours stay.
4, Many coin operated machines, from telephone booths, to crisp, chocolate and drink dispensers, to parking meters in Churchill Square, to changed givers, stamp dispensers, condom dispensers etc, all provide change.
How can you justify your parking meters not providing change?
This practice of keeping change and not allocating extra time for extra monies paid constitutes fraud on a massive scale and a criminal act of swindle.
I intend to bring this matter up with my MP, and conduct a campaign through local media to highlight this grave and criminal act against the residents of Brighton and Hove City. I also intend to raise this issue with the European Ombudsman.
I wish this email to be my formal statement of complaint.
Matthew Taylor
