Boxing Day Parking Fines In Many Boroughs Will "Confuse Shoppers"
Wandsworth will treat bank holiday suspension until Tuesday 29th December
Councils waive parking restrictions on public holidays but as 26 December falls on a Saturday this year some do not recognise it as a public holiday.
Wandsworth council has confirmed that it will be treating Boxing Day as a bank holiday when it comes to parking restrictions on the borough's roads.
This means that people will not be required to pay to park in pay & display bays and that all other residential parking controls will be suspended that day. In contrast, according to a study by BBC London, more than half of London's 32 boroughs will be treating December 26 as a normal Saturday and will be enforcing their local parking controls.
Monday, December 28 is an official public holiday in the UK and controls will also be suspended that day. Transport spokesman Cllr Guy Senior said:
"We took the decision very early on that we would be treating Boxing Day as a bank holiday when it comes to parking rules. We wanted to do all we could to make it easy for residents to welcome their friends and relatives for the traditional festive break. The last thing we wanted to do was spoil people's enjoyment of Christmas by giving them a ticket on Boxing Day.
"We felt that many residents are likely to have guests staying with them between Christmas Day and the bank holiday, so our view was that we should relax parking restrictions throughout that four day period."
Normal parking controls will come back into force on Tuesday, December 29. Be warned that across the bridge - Fulham is among the 17 which confirmed that they would impose parking restrictions on 26 December.
Mr Pearson, of campaign group Penalty Charge Notice, said the lack of consistency will confuse people visiting and shopping in the city on 26 December.
"Boxing Day is a public holiday - it shouldn't not be a public holiday because it happens to be a Saturday," he said. Libraries and leisure centres are all closed on Saturday 26 December because it's a public holiday but they are going to be ticketing motorists and charging for parking because they say it is not a public holiday."
December 17, 2009