Council parking camera strikes again
NORTH Booval resident Fiona Greenwood has labelled a $50 fine she received as "ridiculous" after measuring that the vehicle was parked within her boundary all but for 275 millimetres.
The fine was sent to her after the Ipswich City Council's automated number plate recognition (ANPR) vehicle photographed the car that she is buying for her daughter off her niece.
The council's reason for issuing the fine was that she was parked on the footpath. When the QT visited her home we verified that the vehicle was contained within her yard except for a 275 millimetre overhang past where an imaginary line drawn from the letterbox would mark the boundary. Ms Greenwood had not moved the vehicle since receiving her infringement notice.
"I am 98 per cent in my yard and I am just past my letterbox by 275 millimetres," she said.
"I have left enough room for the mailman to come in. I went across the road and measured from the footpath to the gutter...and then I've come across here and measured to where the footpath would end (if there was one) and I am inside my yard. If I had got a notice saying I wasn't allowed to park here, then I would have moved it.
"I rang up and was told that a guy had an aerial view that said if there was a footpath here I would have been on it. But unless they are going to make a footpath right to my letterbox then I am not on the footpath. They said I can do a 'stat dec', send photos and fight it. I intend to do that because it is ridiculous. It is not the money. It is the principle."
Residents have written to the QT and complained on our website about receiving fines.
On the QT website Councillor David Pahlke said that there was "no education or advertising campaign prior to the launch of the ticket assault on the suburbs or rural areas."
Cr Pahlke said that 100 tickets had been issued in Rosewood, that he had received 18 complaints and that 10 had been waived by the compliance manager after he reviewed the situation.
Councillor Andrew Antoniolli, the health and safety committee chairman, said council was "formulating a public education campaign in relation to this and putting some guidance together for our officers so we can get some compliance through other corrective measures.
"We have three options: enforcement for serious matters, a warning for not so serious matters and for trivial (matters) we may not need to take any action at all."
