Has anyone else in Locks Heath experienced anything like this or is it just me in Warsash?

Last Thursday, 22nd April, after visiting the post office in Warsash, I got in my car, drove off, then pulled over 50-yards down the road in the bus stop outside of the co-op opposite The Ferryman pub to use the cash machine. There was a queue so I thought I’d nip into the co-op, get some milk, hoping the queue would have gone by the time I came out of the store.

When I came out a couple of minutes later I saw a traffic warden ticketing a car that had pulled into the taxi bay! I sped up to get to my car and drive off before getting ticketed myself - but I was too late! - there was a traffic warden ticketing my car too.

Fair enough, I was wrongly parked … slap my wrist and give me a ticket … but something just didn’t add up. I wouldn’t have parked there if I’d seen a traffic warden anywhere nearby. And I’d only been in the shop long enough to pick up some milk and pay for it with the loose change in my pocket - there hadn’t been a queue in the store.

I asked the traffic warden where they had been hiding. Quite defensively they both told me they hadn’t been hiding and had just parked up in the car park next to the toilets on the opposite side of the road. So ticket in hand I used the cash machine while they walked off back to the car park. Just as I was about to get in my car another driver parked up. I told him what had happened and he drove off.

I had an idea.

At the Clock Tower roundabout I turned and came back on myself towards Locks Heath and turned right into the car park to see if my suspicion that they were hiding was correct. Sure enough, there they were at the end of the car park, near a car illegally parked next to the recycling bins with a ticket on the window. They were peeping through the hedge next to the loos waiting to pounce on the next illegal parker.

I’m not denying I was illegally parked and I’ve paid the fine without contesting it. But I’m not overly impressed that traffic wardens can hide like this. I mean, what’s next – camouflage? I guess it makes them more efficient in raising funds for the council.

I thought I’d write this so that local people know that it’s cheaper to either wait for a space in the car park across the road or engage in the parking mayhem behind the co-op and Peter Nash.  

Moany Middle-Aged Man.