Non-drivers paying for parking scheme

NON-MOTORISTS have been helping to fund the borough's residents' permit parking scheme - all because the council has installed a non-functioning computer system.

The council has decided to suspend the direct-debit payment system, which shaves £10 off the normal £34 annual cost of a resident's parking permit, because the system has not been working for the past 10 months.

Although residents wanting to pay by direct debit are now unable to, they are still being given the £10 discount, paying £24. It is leaving the council out of pocket and so taxpayers - including non-motorists - have been paying to fund the difference.

It has also been revealed that Brentwood is the only council in the country to have adopted such a payment system - direct debits are not compatible with the issuing of permits because the permit references change each year.

The problem was revealed for the first time to councillors at a meeting last week.

The Brentwood council officer in charge of the system, Ashley Culverwell, said: "We were expecting efficiency gains in offering the direct-debit system but it is in fact costing more resources putting it right."

Cllr Phil Mynott said: "How has the council managed to get itself into this situation where we decided to apply a scheme to pay for residents parking permits, which doesn't operate anywhere else in the country?

"One small amount of investigation, taken place before we decided to operate that system, would have meant we would have found out why it is not operated anywhere else. I don't know why we didn't do it."

Asked why they had, the council replied that the "people who made that decision to implement the system are no longer working for us."