THE NURSE who received a parking ticket in Salcombe while bandaging a patient’s leg has had her appeal dismissed.

Julia Chandler, who works at South Hams Hospital and the Redfern Surgery in Salcombe, said: ‘I appealed the parking ticket hoping that common sense would prevail and I would be excused the fine.

‘But I have just received a letter stating my appeal has been rejected and I’m extremely disappointed to say the least. I did find the parking attendant after I had finished with my patient and politely explained why I had parked where I did.

‘My visit lasted about 40 minutes. If I have to walk from the surgery car park to his house, an extra 30-40 minutes is added on to this.

Julia continued: ‘If I get a call to a terminal patient who is in pain and needs me to administer drugs, or to a patient with a blocked catheter - which is very painful, it takes me this extra time to reach them.

‘I explained all this to the attendant and he told me he would attach a note to the ticket.’

Julia drew attention to the statement from Devon County Council which said she could appeal the ticket. She said: ‘I feel this was only said for the benefit of the newspaper article.’

‘I mainly want to thank the people of Salcombe for trying their best to stop the warden putting the ticket on my car,’ Julia added.

A Devon County Council spokesman said: ‘We value and support those who provide care in our communities and we offer special parking exemptions which we promote through our website and through clinical commissioning teams.

‘This exemption allows parking without time limit or payment in limited waiting areas, residents’ parking and on-street pay and display parking areas within the Devon County Council boundaries.

‘However this vehicle was parked on yellow lines and the terms of the exemption are quite clear - it does not include areas where other restrictions apply, such as yellow lines.

‘No legal exemption exists or has ever existed which would enable us to grant complete exemption from all parking restrictions.’

However, Julia contacted the Gazette to accuse local authorities of ‘double standards,’ after visiting the same patient ‘on foot’ last week.

Julia said: ‘I had a further irritation when I saw a South Hams Council van was parked in the very same spot where I picked up my ticket!’

In response, the Devon County Council spokesman said: ‘Local authorities would have exemptions when carrying out statutory duties. Had an officer been present, they would certainly have observed, checked through the windscreen for any exemption notice, and engaged the driver if at all possible.

‘A penalty charge notice cannot be issued retrospectively based on a photograph. Our officers need to be present at time of contravention and make appropriate observations to identify whether a contravention has occurred. We have applied our policy and exemptions correctly and not had opportunity to engage with drivers on these occasions.’

The incident was discussed in last week’s Salcombe Town Council meeting, along with another example where Cllr Tony Lang had his own run-in with a traffic warden. Cllr Lang was parked outside Shadycombe Cemetery as part of the community effort to tidy up for the Salcombe Lifeboat Disaster centenary commemorations.

Cllr Lang was told by the traffic warden he had to move his car, and when he explained the situation, the warden insisted he if he didn’t move now, he’d get a ticket.

County Cllr Rufus Gilbert responded: ‘You need to get the traffic warden’s number, and if the person is unreasonable, they can be called in and sent for retraining.

‘County officers do want to know about incidents where wardens have been excessive, or “too Gestapo.”

‘It’s not good, and situations like these should be investigated - if you can’t get a number, log the place and time of the incident. We had a similar problem in Kingsbridge a few years ago, and the warden was sent for retraining.

‘There are ways of doing a job, and most wardens would say in these situations - “I’ll be back in an hour, so please make sure you have moved the vehicle by then,”’ Cllr Gilbert added.

The spokesman for Devon County Council said: ‘We’re not aware of an incident in Kingsbridge which Cllr Gilbert has referred to. Civil parking enforcement officers, until two years ago, were employed by district councils.’

In response to complaints of wardens being heavy-handed, the spokesman said: ‘If anyone thinks that the behaviour of any of our civil enforcement officers is inappropriate, we would ask them to contact us via our customer services on 0345 155 1004.

‘We take complaints seriously and will look into them.’

Cllr Gilbert added: ‘It make’s no difference whom employs the enforcement officer. The attitude to the public by the enforcement officer must be appropriate.’