I WOULD not have believed it had I not witnessed it myself.

I was about to park outside the Wolves Stadium on Winwick Road on Friday, when I was confronted by a small hunched figure in the road. It turned out to be one of our ‘parking attendants’ taking a close-up picture.

I resisted the temptation to get rid of the ‘rubbish’ littering the street and as I parked up became aware of a distressed elderly woman driver who was being penalised because she had one wheel outside the line marking the parking bay.

She had obviously had some difficulty getting into the tight space between two other cars, and was just a mite ‘untidy’ in her final positioning. This was to cost her £60. The parking attendant made off back towards town.

I happen to be a 77-year-old disabled man who still drives a car, but who also owns a pavement-legal mobility scooter which dismantles into half a dozen bits for carrying in the boot of my car, and which I can unload and assemble very easily in order to get about both the town centre and the suburb where I live.

I cannot walk anywhere these days as I used to do, but would enjoy the fresh air and pleasure of life at walking pace if only I could get about without finding pavements obstructed by cars parked with two wheels on them and not leaving enough clearance between vehicle and wall for me to get by.

The same degree of inconvenience applies to mothers with prams who are also obliged to pass the obstruction on the roadway.

In a town where a pensioner can be penalised £60 for parking a trifle untidily, it seems that we citizens should expect better enforcement of the separation of pedestrians and motor vehicles.

Recently some ‘jobsworth’ employed by the council commented that it was most important that footpath crossings were constructed to ensure that underground services are protected.

We do not see any concern to protect those underground services where vehicles park on the footpath all over the district.

It is time the council bucked up its ideas and did the job properly.

DAVID JOHNSON Penketh