By Alesha Capone
Wyndham council has withdrawn just over 2 per cent of parking fines it issued across a 12-month period.
Between May 10 last year and May 10 this year, council officers wrote out a total of 29,173 parking infringements.
Wyndham’s city operations director Stephen Thorpe said the council had reviewed 4637 of these fines at the request of motorists, and as a result withdrew 596 of the infringements (2.04 per cent of the total fines issued during the 12-month timeframe).
“The main reason council withdraws infringements is because of exceptional circumstances,” Mr Thorpe said.
“Other grounds for the waiving of parking fines are special circumstances, as defined under the Infringements Act 2006, mistaken identity and contrary to law.”
‘Exceptional circumstances’ means the person issued with an infringement has a valid reason to excuse the infringement.
Under the Infringements Act, ‘special circumstances’ can apply to a person with a mental or intellectual disability, disorder, disease or illness; who is homeless; or who has a serious addiction to drugs, alcohol or a volatile substance, resulting in them being unable to understand what conduct constitutes an offence, or to control conduct which constitutes an offence.
It also includes people subjected to family violence, who are unable to control conduct which constitutes an offence.
Mr Thorpe said the main reasons parking infringements were issued were for overstaying the time permitted (7083 fines), parking on a nature strip (6449 fines) and stopping in a no stopping zone (4076 fines).
Vehicles stopped in a loading zone attracted 2156 fines and vehicles parked outside a parking bay attracted 1038 fines.
Earlier this month, the council endorsed a new enforcement policy, to guide its officers in their enforcement decisions.
Wyndham’s safer communities portfolio holder Cr Kim McAliney said the policy covered parking, litter, animal control, town planning, building and food businesses regulation.
“Council has legal responsibilities and obligations to ensure there is compliance with our local laws, and our community has a responsibility to comply,” Cr McAliney said.
