Ihave read with interest over the past months your columns and the letters to the Editor regarding the war of the parking fines.

Like others that have written to you I wa s the unfortunate receiver of one of these penalty notices and, again like many others, I thought unreasonably.

I parked in Le Mans Crescent and was checking the sign when I became aware of being watched by a parking attendant, so I quickly got a ticket and went about by my business. I returned 10 minutes later to discover I had been booked. It transpires that I had parked in a motorcycle bay.

The "notice" was written on the road. It states "solo m/c only", whatever that means, but as I parked with the driver's side against the pavement I did not see it.

There were also four or five empty bays next to where I parked, so the attendant could easily have told me to move up one bay to avoid a parking penalty, but he simply walked away, only to return when I had left the scene to issue me with a ticket.

I wrote to the council saying that I had paid the fine and asked them if I was legally entitled to claim my 60 pence parking fee back.

It took two letters, the second enclosing a copy of the parking fee ticket but today I was astonished to receive a postal order from the council for £1.

Now I am in a quandary.

Do they realise that they have overpaid me? Do I refund them the extra 40 pence? Do I send the postal order back and ask them for another one for 60 pence? Is the extra 40 pence some form of compensation? Is this an admission of their liability? Shall I just frame it? I wonder.

My advice to those other unfortunates who have bought a ticket then received a parking fine (or are fined in future) is to write to the council to claim back their parking fee.

The Council tell me they are still looking into the matter of the parking attendant not advising me that I was parked incorrectly.

They say that "on this occasion it appears customer care was not paramount".

Too right it wasn't - I'm £30 worse off.

Mark Leigh

Dunblane Avenue, Ladybridge