I HAVE read with interest recent articles in the Bolton Evening News regarding sympathetic parking policies. What a joke.

On September 16 my daughter (a student) parked her car on Central Street car park. She put her money in the machine (£1.90 for two hours). For whatever reason, the machine only printed a ticket for one hour's parking. Whether the fault was on the machine or my daughter pressing the button before the last coin had registered, we don't know.

Then along comes your "friendly" warden some one hour eight minutes later, and books the car, although the ticket issued clearly shows a payment of £1.80.

Perhaps a reasonably intelligent person would realise a genuine mistake had occurred. If my daughter had only wanted one hour, she would have only put £1 in the machine, not £1.80.

I then appealed, thinking the warden's bosses would look at my situation and rectify the mistake. How wrong can you be. They seem to have the same sympathetic and sensible approach as their employees. If they were trying to empty the town and drive people away, they couldn't be doing a better job.

I feel that issuing a £60 parking fine for a 10p error, whether the error was my daughter's or the machine's, is not a very sympathetic way of dealing with the situation.

Sympathetic parking policy? I think not!

G Simpson

Edgworth

Bolton