Free Traffic Legal Advice

Hi all; I've been signposted to this site from PePiPoo so am posting the message I posted there with some minor adjustments...

I wonder if anyone has any thoughts on this situation. I am a blue badge holder with various (serious) health issues & use a mobility scooter. I aren't particularly trying to get out of the fine (& I don't want it doubling!). I am however considering placing a formal complaint for disability discrimination to the Scarborough Council based around the fact that the circumstances I found myself in would have been significantly less problematic to an able-bodied person and that potentially the enforcement officer & certainly the appeals officer failed to consider how reasonable adjustments might have been applied.

I recently spent a weekend in a B&B & had been advised that some parking was available outside. On arrival though, due to other issues in the area, it was coned off. This was the night of one of the recent storms & weather conditions were atrocious. My options basically amounted to using a DYL across the road (no obstruction was created) or going to a car park which was maybe 150 yards away & either walking or scooting back. I would struggle to walk that distance at the best of times, never mind in howling winds & torrential rain, & the scooter (a small boot-sized travel one) would have been difficult to manage as I'd have had to find pavement drops & probably ride on the road. More significantly, I'd have had to leave it outside overnight as well which would likely as not have caused it damage.

In the end, I opted to risk the DYL & set the clock for 9am when I was advised enforcement usually started. My aim had been to move the car during the morning when the weather had calmed down. I duly found a ticket timed at 7.25 the following morning. I appealed & in their response, the council said the problem was the clock. This would have meant that aside from needing to know when the warden would have been there, I'd have had to go out during the severe weather between 4.25 & 7.25am to set the clock.

I fully accept that I was technically in the wrong, but given the fact I was displaying a blue badge, which shows I was a visitor to the area & knowing the issues relating to the removal of my intended parking space & the dangerous weather, that obvious reasonable adjustments could have been made either in the issuing of the ticket (by 9.30 am the car had in fact been moved) or certainly in their consideration of my circumstances.

The fine is really neither here nor there, but I feel incredibly angry that I was left in an essentially impossible position due to my disability & that they blandly brushed it away. I can't find my appeal as it was via an online form, but attached is the response.

Any thoughts welcome prior to me starting to draft my complaint would be welcomed.

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