Parking permit is a rip off!

Johnny Rotten once asked his audience, “Ever had the feeling you’ve been cheated?”.

Well, if YOU ever want to feel that YOU’VE been cheated, then I can thoroughly recommend getting a resident’s parking permit from the council.

This document graciously allows a trades person to park outside your house for a whole week. The cost? Why, a very reasonable £25! For that money, you might assume that it’s because of a very labour intensive process that takes a trained person hours to produce the finished document. For 25 of your hard earned pounds, it HAS to come on thick parchment, inlaid by hand with gold leaf and beautifully mounted in a bespoke mahogany frame. Yes? Er, no. Actually, it takes a lady about two minutes to take your details, print it out (in colour, I should add, just in case I might be seen to be suggesting that this wasn’t excellent value for money), and then handed over to you as you tearfully part with your money after only waiting for 20 minutes for the privilege of being royally stiffed.

As was pointed out to me, if I had wanted to wait a couple of days (i.e until after the guy had finished working and didn’t need a permit any more), then the cost would magically be reduced to “only” £15. I can only assume that those are done in black and white to show the world ( well, Worksop) what an utter cheapskate you must be for not shelling out for a proper piece of paper which might as well say “I am a sucker”.

Anyway, I’m off quick to park my car while I can!

Ian Greenwood

(via email)

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