Petition against new parking machines in Mid Sussex Petition : [ powered by iPetitions.com ]

#	Name	Where do you live? (e.g Lindfield)	Your comments
151	Frank Milligan	Burgess Hill	If its not broken don't fix it.
152	K. Langhamer	burgess Hill	The new parking machines are both time consuming and an unwarranted exploitation of the potential shoppers and visitors to the town. I resent the dishonest money grabbing methods used by this council and would rather go to Crawley or Brighton to shop safe in the knowledge that the parking costs are at least honest. Even the added cost of getting out of town is worth it if it demonstrates how this money grabbing council is showing no consideration for the residents and businesses of mid sussex
153	Serena Tierney	Cuckfield	The time taken to use the new machines together with the continuing inability to give change will have an adverse effect on shopping in our towns. This will hit the local independent businesses hardest and at a time when they can least afford any additional drop in trade. It is totally inconsistent with encouraging visitors into our towns. The cost of c£150K will take 10 years to recover on the basis of the 'fraudulent' ticket sharing that MSDC uses to justify it. There does not seem to be a single positive result for local people from this latest pet money-wasting project of those who run our council.
154	Anonymous	Anonymous	Utter waste of time/taxpayers money. Waited in queue to obtain ticket for well over 20 mins. What may have been gained by not being able to pass ticket on others, has been lost by fact print so small for your inspectors to check easily. I would like to know what the inspectors think of this time wasting, customer upsetting load of rubbish!
155	Philip George	Cuckfield	Bad design, (Manufacturer) bad choice (Council)and we, (the public and retailers) suffer! Stroud council introduced these machines in October 2007, they had them changed by Feb 2008.
156	Ann Stockdale	Ashurst Wood	The new machines are a way of stopping visitors returning to the town. I spent 13 minutes in the queue to get a ticket in the church road car park on saturday 31st May. One machine was not working, and noone knew how to work them - the instructions are not easy to follow and luckily everyone was helping each other. I will not be returning to the town in a hurry as the hassle is too much . Thank good ness it was not raining !!!! I think there would have been more bad tempers than there was.
157	Helen Eaton	Cuckfield	If the reason these new parking machines have been introduced is to prevent people passing tickets on to others, this is both mean and unjust. The time has been paid for and the neighbourly friendly approach should be encouraged in our community not prevented. They are discriminatory as people with poor vision or manual dexterity cannot operate the machine without help and the time-wasting aspect has already led people to say they won't shop in HAywards Heath any more, so will affect the local shopkeepers.
158	Anonymous	Anonymous	Just another way for the council to make more money, why can they not install machines which give change. The Orchards shopping centre will go into decline and the town will soon lose any appeal to shoppers making journeys to Crawley or Brighton inevitable. So much for trying to reduce our carbon emissions.
159	Anonymous	Anonymous	.I find these new machines not only a waste of time but an enfringement of my personal civil liberties. I am certain they were installed to try to stop people passing their parking tickets to other users if there was time left on them. This is a right as if the parking has been paid for then that is sufficient . To try to fine people for doing this is an illegal attack on personal freedoms.
160	Anonymous	Anonymous	Time will show the council the error of its ways, unfortunately it will be too late for the shops in Haywards Heath. Why would i choose to wait for 10 minutes (or more) in busy periods for a ticket when i can shop in Crowborough or online for free & without the hassle? The 'modern' parking meters you have installed are unreliable, not user-friendly, unjust, unsafe (for parents with children) timeconsuming monsters that will go the way of the dinosaurs. Well done, give yourselves a pat on the back...... another nail in the small independent retailers coffin..... why not celebrate with a glass of bubbly Cristal and guzzle away more of the taxpayers hard earned cash. Cheers!
161	Mrs S.D. Milligan	Burgess Hill	Waiting in a queue to pay for parking, using a machine that is impossible to get money into and keeps giving instructions in a language we do not understand is...(to say the least) ridiculous!! Even on a chilly dry day, but when it rains tempers will be raised!! Lets all park in Waitrose.. Fair charges easy payment, that will do for me.
162	June Calvert	Wivelsfield Green	I think the new parking machines introduced in Haywards Heath and Burgess Hill are ridiculous. Also the parking fees are outrageous.
163	Graham Allen	Burgess Hill	I am dismayed at the amount of taxpayers's money which is wasted on schemes such as this, and why wasn't there any consultation prior to their implementation?
164	Graham Knight	Burgess Hill	Visiting the Car Parks last week the queues were even longer. Children and grandchildren had been drafted in during half-term to help work out how to use the machines. It was to no avail as they struggled just as much with incoherent and almost invisible (well to my eyes) screens. I understand that the machines are designed for long stay rather than short stay parking. I also understand that very few councils have gone down this route of the non-transferable tickets for their park and pay machines. I wonder why, perhaps they worked out they would have problems introducing them - before they spent their tax payers £130,000 and put their town traders businesses under pressure. MSDC has spent millions over the last few years putting in plans to revitalize our town centres. What a waste of time, effort and our money.
165	Sarah W	Cuckfield	The council say the reasson you have to put your reg in is to stop ticket fraud. i.e. when a penalty fine is issued for not displaying a ticket the member of the public produces a ticket claiming that the parking enforcement officer did not see it or it slipped out of sight from the dashboard. The council say that these people are borrowing tickets off the other parking public to avoid parking fines. Did the council not realise that by making the queues 10-15 deep on machines during busy periods that they are actually encouraging fraudulent behaviour?? I for one only really visit Haywards Heath for my banking now and this only takes me 10 or so minutes to do this. Why would i wait for 10 minutes in a queue to do this? I ENCOURAGE ALL PEOPLE WHO ARE ONLY IN HAYWARDS HEATH FOR A SHORT PERIOD OF TIME TO NOT QUEUE FOR A TICKET. THERE IS NO WAY THAT A PARKING ENFORCEMENT OFFICER CAN PROVE THAT YOU WERE NOT QUEUING FOR A TICKET IN THAT TIME. With say 3 machines in a car park with queues of 10 deep that is 30 people the parking officer will have to remember were there! Also THERE IS NO WAY PARKING OFFICERS WILL BE ABLE TO ENFORCE THE LACK OF TICKET BEING DISPLAYED IN A CAR AS HE DOESNT KNOW IF THE CAR CONCERNED IS OWNED BY SOMEONE IN THE MASSIVE QUEUES!!!! If he does start slapping on the tickets on cars of people waiting for queues imagine the OUTRAGE this will cause!!! So to all shoppers out there who have had enough....I say dont get a ticket when the queues are ridculously long, park your car, go shopping and CLAIM you were in the queue - THE COUNCIL WILL NOT BE ABLE TO PROVE OTHERWISE!
166	Mr.A.J.Crawford	Ansty	Suggest that the names of those councillors who sanctioned this system be published so that they can be unseated at the next opportunity - democracy in action!
167	Anonymous	Anonymous	A gross misuse of taxpayers money.
168	Anonymous	Anonymous	more tax payers money wasted on expensive replacement parking machines, when we already had a sound working system.
169	Anonymous	Anonymous	Gross misuse of taxpayers money, typical council loonacy.
170	Jeremy Evans	Cuckfield	I queued up for 15 mins for a ticket in Burgess Hill on Saturday - 1 machine was out of action. The machines are far too complicated and I can't believe they are more reliable than the previous fit for purpose machines. This is a total waste of £130K of taxpayers money for minimal gain.
171	Sarah Millard	Burgess Hill	The new number plate system is ridiculous and complicated. If a ticket has been bought which permits use of a space for an allotted amount of time, it should not matter WHO uses it. It is still the same space, being used for the same amount of time.
172	Anonymous	Anonymous	I am disappointed that the local people were not consulted before a substantial amount of local tax payers money was spent, unnecessarily, on parking machines which are now a thorn in the side of all motorists who use these machines. Inevitably, I will take my business elsewhere to as to avoid these machines.
173	Ross Millard	Burgess Hill	The board beside the meter says that penalty fines will be issued in certain circumstances. It does not list "displaying a ticket with someone else's registration number on it" on there. So presumably they cannot issue a fixed penalty for this?
174	Simon Cowley	Haywards Heath	The only fraud incurred by parking meters is their inability to give change to the user, not a customer choosing to park a different car within a space they have payed for.
175	Anna Miller	Haywards Heath	Waste of our hard earned money! People should be able to pass tickets on as one of the few reminders of human kindness! The councel has put a stop to this at our cost, as just another money making scheme for them!
176	Clare Harman	Hurstpierpoint	The costs are high, they are difficult to use and they are simply a waste of money.
177	p r williams	burgess hill	The Council has ignored many sections of the population by this act. My own observations indicate that it will take approximately six years to recover the cost of the new machines.
178	Paul Kelly	Bolney	If any population requires brigh ideas the last person they would ask would be any one in government national or local, the first requirement of which seems to be that their shoe size and IQ are the same. The people do not want the parking metres in any shape or form and it is a clear breach of security to put a vehicle registration number into a machine. More so given the very poor record of local authorities at keeping hold of this data. It has to be said that perhaps Mr Wall should "consider his position" as nothing he could do would be as noteworthy as his resignation. "Go, Sir for God's Sake Go" and leave us all in peace. Self agrandising time wasters are two a penny.. Think on this - The population do not want the machines the traders do not want them what on earth are you doing? As the Good King Harry once said - you are king boy because we say you can be king,
179	Anthony McGrath	Horsted Keynes	The Council should have regard to the value of the time of its local citizens. If there is a great need to recover the lost revenue from the illegal transfer of tickets, then the Council should consider putting up the price of parking rather than putting in badly designed systems that waste people's time. Time is a very valuable commodity - although perhaps not in the Council's parking dept.
180	Mrs Todd	Haywards Heath	The parking machines are causing a lot of confusion, especially with the older generation. They take too long to go through the process and I have experienced some very long queues (13 minutes on one occasion in the rain), this in turn made me very late for an appointment. I am very computer literate and have no problems working them but i feel they are not very user friendly and leave may of the customers frustrated. I have witnessed people leaving to shop elsewhere because of the parking machines which is not very good for the local businesses! The replacement of the machines appears to be very unnecessary and a waste of the councils money which could be better spent on other areas in the town.
181	PETITION ORGANISERS	HAYWARDS HEATH AND BURGESS HILL	PUBLIC NOTICE : - 5 JUNE 2008 - PLEASE NOTE, THIS PETITION HAS BEEN BROUGHT TO A CLOSE, MID SUSSEX DISTRICT COUNCIL ARE AMENDING ALL PARKING METERS WITHIN SHORT TERM CARPARKS FOR HAYWARDS HEATH AND BURGESS HILL, THERE WILL NO LONGER BE THE NEED FOR VEHICLE REGISTRATION NUMBERS TO BE INSERTED INTO THE MACHINES AT THESE CARPARKS. THE CHANGEOVER FOR THESE MACHINES WILL BE COMPLETED BY THE 12TH JUNE. IF POSSIBLE PLEASE READ THE ARTICLE ON PAGE THREE OF THE MID SUSSEX TIMES DATED 5TH JUNE 08 . THE PETITION ORGANISERS WOULD LIKE TO THANK ALL THOSE WHO PARTICIPATED IN SUPPORT OF THIS PETITION. WELL DONE !
182	hayley kelsey	burgesshill	these meters are awful.people are finding them very hard to use and they are taking people ages to get there tickets meaning long ques an wating ages to get tickets.....
183	Angela Murray	Haywards Heath	The machines are incredibly laborious and time-consuming to use and I thoroughly object to the fact that I am no longer to pass my ticket for a space, which has already been paid for, to somebody else. I can hardly believe that MSDC has spent so much money installing brand new machines, the main motive for which seems to be to prevent us from being generous to somebody else with the time that we have already paid for.
184	Anonymous	Anonymous	I have seen people in tears over these machines. A council should be supporting our community not putting up barriers to it. Voting will put this council back in touch with reality.
185	Wendy Willard	Burgess Hill	What a waste of time these meters are!!!!!!!!!!!!!
186	Mr.& Mrs.R.E.H.Starling	Newick	We were really pleased to hear that we would no longer have to put in our car reg.no. We were so unhappy with the new system, that as a matter of principle we had ceased using the Orchards except occasionally on a Sunday for M&S. Although we live in Newick our extended family are in Haywards Heath. We would combine our shopping with visiting family. When the new parking system was installed we started to shop in Uckfield where parking is free. Yours sincerel Richard and Jean Starling.
187	Jeanette Seymour	Burgess Hill