Walderslade woman hit with School Streets parking fine she is exempt from

A disabled woman from Walderslade says she's being threatened with court action over 'School Streets' fines she is exempt from due to her blue badge.

Transcript

00:00Drive down one of these roads that drop off and pick up times and you'll face a fine of

00:06up to £70. It's designed to get parents to walk their children to school but there are

00:12exceptions for residents, buses and emergency services and anyone with a blue badge.

00:21Marlene has one. She's been using a courtesy car after an incident and she told the council

00:28the new number plate. Her exemption should still apply despite that Medway Council has

00:34sent her fines totalling more than £1,000. I actually got to the point that I'm scared

00:41to open the mail now because every time I open the mail there's a new citation or a penalty

00:47charge and unfortunately in my case mental illness is part of my disability and receiving

00:54these letters is just making my health a lot worse. Enterprise, the car hire firm forwarded

01:0018 fines to her. When she contacted the authority they promised to council them but soon after

01:06the PCNs were directly sent to Marlene. She asked for them to be counselled once more but

01:13she's now receiving court orders. I've only received one so far but I'm expecting to receive

01:2018 because I've received 18 citations. That would devastate my credit. Credit is something

01:27so important. That's what annoys me the most is that they have assured me that I am exempt,

01:34that I don't need to pay for this and yet they're now taking it to court because I haven't paid.

01:39School streets have been in Medway for more than a year now and the St Thomas Moor primary

01:45behind me is just one example. The whole idea is to make it safer for children to get to school

01:51during rush hour. For council's sake they do check each fine on a case by case basis but the whole

01:59scheme has proven to be nothing but controversial. I think particularly in this specific case obviously

02:06the council clearly needs to carry out an investigation and I'd call for the portfolio

02:10holder to really be looking into that and taking a pragmatic and genuine approach towards the public

02:15in terms of the engagement on that. Medway council have now apologised and said they're working

02:20to ensure all remaining correspondence related to these PCNs is withdrawn and no further action

02:26is taken. They also say they're reviewing internal processes to prevent similar occurrences in the

02:32future. Marlene's worried she's not alone and this is happening to others and the council are now

02:37consulting on plans to roll the scheme out even further. Gabriel Morris in Waterslade.