Streetlife

There was a thread about this a while back ...

http://www.streetlife.com/conversation/4f4f6aee00725b1096000008/

Ultimately the responsibility is yours.  It is extremely easy to write a note of the date in your diary - on your planner - in your phone.  The councils are saving fortunes not reminding folk perhaps?  But surely after the first ticket you would have made a point of sorting it out?

The renewal of my daughter's permit is etched in stone, we know the date as well as we know when the birthdays are, when the tax needs renewing etc

The council has not stopped sending out reminder letters to permit holders. In fact we send out around 72,000 of these each and every year.
 
These reminders are sent out six weeks before the old permit expires to give residents plenty of time to get a new one. We do everything we can to give motorists this advance notice and because we are aware that there are occasional problems with the postal system we are also looking to introduce electronic reminders using email and text messages.
 
Ultimately however, it is up to drivers to ensure that their vehicle has a valid permit, in much the same way that they need to make sure their car has a valid MOT every year.
 
The council is certainly not aware of "thousands of Wandsworth residents" who have not received reminder letters. The Wandsworth Guardian article quoted two people who said they had not received reminders.

I've had correspodence with the council about this having been fined for a lapse some years ago.
The relavent councior told me that they had changed their practice and now wardens would leave reminder notices on cars some days before they issued a penalty notice,  I had of course been told this was absolutely impossible when I asked for it at the time of my penalty,  
There are certainly a number of instances of people being caught with fines by genuine errors.

This has happened to me the last two years and to my husband v recently. They say they have not stopped sending out letters but they must have and I agree that because I got one for the last 25 years I had assumed I always would and felt very cheated and unfairly treated and fined both times. However now I really must try and keep on top of it (as goody goody above says) as you have to pay the fine as it is your responsibility. However I totally sympathise with your frustration and anger as I'm sure it gives them extra revenue (and saves money in reminders). And I wish I hadn't read this and been reminded of my frustration! You pay the permit and have to pay the fine, really really unfair.

Hi Joanna
I think it's the style of the letters that have changed. When I received my reminder it stated that I should go online and order it, but it wasn't the old style which included the form you can take to the technical desk to buy your new one.

We have a disabled parking permit with Lanbeth and they kindly give us an extra permit along with the Blue Badge so we don't have to use the Blue Badge outside our house....this was due to our car being broken into many times prior to this being available and it has stopped the theft of out Blue Badge. It's stressful every time we have to renew as it involves filling in an amazingly long form on the internet and then waiting till you actually receive the badge. This year my partner spent ages trying to renew the badge in time but after  6 weeks of waiting and no badge it was time to go to the council and demand action. They were very good at giving us a temporary permit for 3 weeks and our badge arrived within 2. Cathy

With the rates and charges in Lambeth it ought to arrive silver-plated. Their parking schemes are utterly ridiculous, they even change zones in the middle of a street and give you a ticket for parking in the wrong bit. Utterly stupid.  In Wandsworth at least you can have a crossover where that happens.  I am amazed that you can wiat for 6 weeks then another 2 and call that good service - perhaps that is because you have been "given" your permit rather than paying like everyone else....and am not sure how anyone can go to the council if they work normal hours either.

Joanna C - that is why the date for renewing our permit is etched in my memory .. I am the one who has to do it - my daughter and son in law work the same hours as the Council is open .. as do the traffic wardens around St George's who swoop like vultures if your exhaust pipe is outside the white parking space!  The offices were open on Saturday mornings but it wasn't unusual to have an extraordinarily long wait.

Nice attitude Wandsworth Council - instead of mocking customer complaints why don't you do something about it.
If I sent that sort of message out to my customers I would expect to have a job the next day.

Obviously there is a cost for every reminder letter the council sends out.  Personally I applaud the council for not wasting the money and resources to remind you of your yearly responsibilities.  I wonder how many trees a year are saved by this...

They should/could be sent electronically with a link to the renewal page. Silly in this day and age not to, particularly with postal prices so high. So simple to have a box marked "please send me an electronic reminder,my email address is...................". Simple efficiency. We pay to park our cars outside our houses on streets whose upkeep we pay for so having to pay to park is bad enough without being humungously fined on top. The thing to be thankful for is that the charge in Wandsworth is still within reason, unlike Lambeth.... and we benefit from ParkMobile, unlike Lambeth and others, which is a good service to residents.

its a bit sweeping to assume everyone is computor friendly

I think the majority of drivers are, plus you may have seen I was merely suggesting it as an opt-in to save the council money and time, Their compouter programme can auto-send out reminders once set up properly, without "human intervention". Quicker, cleaner, easier etc etc

I think a text message would be better that way it doesn't cost much at all!

i understood your idea and think it is fine - but still think it is a big assumption that many are IT friendly.
Of course people on here and our friends will be.

Hello South West London, I have just hit the explore button to find that you have a thread running on residents concerns over parking permits. Whilst I can see that your issues are slightly different there are some common denominators with our issues over in the east. One thing that I did notice was that your comments have generated a response from the local authority, albeit that the author appears to be anonymous. Whether or not you agree with the content of the remarks it appears that your message is getting through.Could it be someone within the Town Hall isactually reading 'Streetlife'. Being a synical old b*****d I thought that initiative by an individual was killed by the birth of the monster named political correctness but the existence of this response suggests the contrary.