A town councillor has accused Buckinghamshire Council of 'unlawfully' failing to update signs in an Amersham car park after introducing new parking restrictions.
Mark Roberts, a Lib Dem representative on Amersham Town Council, noticed the difference between parking costs listed on signage in Sycamore Road car park and new, extended parking tariffs introduced by Buckinghamshire Council on September 1, last week.
The new charges, which extended the car park's hours until 7pm and introduced restrictions on Sundays and Bank Holidays, was already an unpopular move, Cllr Roberts said, with the "misleading" signs further disadvantaging less digitally-savvy, older residents who wouldn't be able to see the revised tariffs on RingGo.
He also reported the issue to the council's FixMyStreet platform on Friday, September 20, suggesting it was "unlawfully charging" drivers by "failing incompetently" to put up new signs before enforcing the changes.
Cllr Roberts and eight of his fellow councillors described the new measures as "a kick in the teeth" in a letter penned after they were approved by Buckinghamshire Council in July – according to leader Martin Tett, to ease the budgetary pressures faced by the unitary authority.
A letter penned by the town councillors said the new restrictions "rubbed salt in the wound" of a series of technical issues with parking machines in Amersham over the summer, and hadn't taken into account the "widespread" local opposition to the "short-sighted" plans.
Buckinghamshire Council has been contacted for comment on the outdated signage.
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