By Margaret Crosby

Published at 11:09, Thursday, 14 June 2012

A WOMAN fighting a Sunday morning parking ticket has questioned why a small town like Whitehaven needs to employ parking attendants at that time.

Janet Atwell, of Globe House, Strand Street, was irate to find her Ford Fiesta car issued with a £25 penalty after a bad asthma attack prevented her going out to move it.

Janet, 56, suffers from COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease), rheumatoid arthritis and osteoporosis and has a disabled badge for her car. She had parked it on Saturday on the roadside at Duke Street, just below Anna’s Cafe, and rose on Sunday morning to find she had a ticket.

“I was livid,’’ she said. “I was not obstructing anything or anybody. It was Sunday morning. The ticket says they have observed my car between 8.47am and 8.47am, so they haven’t even waited to see if I was unloading anything.

“If I had moved the car on Saturday night onto the loading bay outside my flat I wouldn’t have got a ticket but this wasn’t an option for me as I had a really bad asthma attack on Saturday night.

“The only thing I haven’t done is change the time on my disc which is hard for me to do in the mornings as I can’t breathe very well first thing. It seems very unfair. This is a small town and to employ parking attendants on a Sunday is beyond me.’’

Janet has appealed the issuing of the ticket with the county council and has also taken the matter up with MP Jamie Reed and her local councillors who have offered to look into it.

She added: “I need my car to go to doctor’s and hospital appointments as I can’t walk very far. I usually keep it down at my daughter’s at Rudds Court and only have it up here when I’ve got an appointment which I had.’’

Published by http://www.whitehavennews.co.uk