News In Focus
15 February 2007
Legal mistake lets parking offenders off the hook
A legal mistake has meant that parking offenders in Edinburgh will not have to pay an estimated £6.5 million in parking tickets.
The unpaid tickets issued before June 2006 are technically illegal because there was no date of issue or offence printed on them so uncollected fines after 1998 can no longer be pursued through the courts.
The number of fines is thought to be about 70,000 at £90 each - although some 4,000 fines have not yet been passed on to sheriff officers.
A spokesperson for Edinburgh City Council said the Department of Transport guidelines were at fault, but that refunding fines that had already been paid was not an option.