Kirklees Council backs down over Brendan Hynes’s parking fine

Jan 6 2010 by Katie Grant, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

“When I got back home with the car I parked it outside my drive and went inside my house to return a call and when I came out there was a traffic officer outside writing me a ticket.”

The council said the contravention occurred because Brendan had not displayed his parking permit.

But Brendan, who has lived in Almondbury for eight years, said he’d only just gone inside to get his parking permit.

He argued that the parking bay shouldn’t extend past his drive anyway because only he or a visitor to his house should only be allowed to park across his driveway.

He told the Examiner: “It’s quite clear that the council haven’t got much of a grasp on the law or any common sense.

“But they should – because if they’ve got the power to issue people with fixed penalty notices the chances are a lot of people are going to back down when they are faced with a £35 fine because it’s a lot of money.”

Brendan, who comes from near Glasgow, said: “I had to go all the way to a tribunal.

“Just look at how much time and money was spent by Kirklees Council fighting my case when all it required was a bit of common sense.”