5:30pm Friday 19th March 2010
By Andrew Napier
CITY residents in Winchester are being offered £250 to illegally sell their parking permits to a commuter.
Misuse of the permits — which were widely introduced across the city centre in 1996 — has been a chronic problem for years.
The visitor permits cost £50 a year. But commuters using them can save hundreds of pounds a year by not buying a season ticket in civic car parks.
In 2004 it was revealed there was a black market in Winchester, with motorists paying up to £500 for permits to park in the Water Lane area.
Now several people living in Hyde are said to have received a letter from a Winchester woman offering money for permits.
The city council has said it is investigating the allegation into attempted fraud.
Paul Wing, of Silchester Place, Hyde, was among residents to receive an unsigned letter on Sunday.
He showed the letter to the Hampshire Chronicle, although declined to reveal the identity of the sender.
He said he did not want to land the letter writer into trouble. “She has made a terrible mistake. But I don’t want her name put in the paper,” he said.
Mr Wing said he had called the mobile phone number on the letter to verify it was genuine.
The letter said: “I work in Winchester and am finding the parking charges increasingly difficult to afford.
“I wonder if you would be able to provide me with a visitors parking permit, and in return I could afford to pay you £250.”
Mr Wing, who is set to stand for the Conservatives in the forthcoming city council elections, added: “I was very cross. So many residents have complained to me about the lack of spaces available to legitimate permit holders, and the fact that some commuters are now trying to obtain visitor permits dubiously for use on a regular basis is just not acceptable.
“These are tough times for us all, for our own budgets, and also for council budgets, and I wonder how people must feel to hear that a minority of unscrupulous people are cheating the system.”
Steve Brine, the Conservative prospective parliamentary candidate for Winchester, has expressed his disappointment over the scam.
Mr Brine said: “I was saddened but certainly not surprised to hear that Paul and many other residents had received this request.
“As someone who lives just outside the city centre myself and regularly makes the commute to London by train, I can understand the motivation to secure a parking spot and avoid high parking charges, but this is just not on and will only end up making our parking problems in the city centre worse.”
A city council spokesman said: “We are taking these claims very seriously and are investigating the letter.
“We are trying to find out how many people have received the letter.”
City councillor Chris Pines has long highlighted the issue. He said there was anecdotal evidence that it was still happening in the Water Lane area.
Cllr Pines said each visitor permit should have the holder’s address so the validity of the user could be easily checked.
He said of the misuse: “It is unfair when parking spaces are difficult to get hold of.
“These people are cheating the whole community through cheating on taxes, because car parking is a tax that has to be paid.
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