A home carer has said she won’t pay a parking fine handed out to her while visiting a client – and has called for care agency staff to be allowed free parking across Slough.

Carol Harvey was given a £70 fine for parking in a loading and unloading bay on Elmhurst Road in Langley last Tuesday, July 9. She says she was correctly parked as she was unloading equipment to take to a client’s home.

But Slough Borough Council parking officers refused to accept her explanation. Mrs Harvey told the Observer: “We shouldn’t be getting fines in the first place as carers. I understand that they’re doing their job, but when I’ve emailed and explained you’d think they would squash it.”

Mrs Harvey appealed to Slough Borough Council to overturn her fine on the day that she got it. But council traffic officers said there were no ‘mitigating circumstances’ to justify overturning it.

In a letter to Mrs Harvey the council says loading and unloading must be ‘continuous’ when parked in a loading bay. They said they watched her car for six minutes without seeing any loading taking place.

The letter said: “The act of loading/unloading when parked in a loading bay must be continuous and apparent to anyone observing the vehicle that it is taking place.

“The authority has assessed this case, has considered the points you have raised, and on this occasion finds no mitigating circumstances to cancel this PCN and is satisfied that the PCN was correctly issued to you.”

But Mrs Harvey says six minutes isn’t enough time to attend to a client. She says Slough Borough Council offers parking permits to residents who need carers.

But she says the time it takes to go back and forth between her car and a clients’ home eats into the 30-minute window she has to look after them.

Mrs Harvey says that instead Slough Borough Council should offer carers parking permits like the council in the neighbouring Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead. She said this would help carers – who ‘go from house to house, all over the place’ – visit their clients.

She said: “I don’t want something for nothing. But it’s not as if it would cost them anything to give free parking to carers who worked through the pandemic. We work so hard for so little.”

She added that she is 'not paying' the fine.

A Slough Borough Council spokesperson said drivers can write to the council following an appeal if they are unhappy with the outcome. They said the council offers one hour’s free parking to care agencies, and visitor vouchers to residents.

The spokesperson said: “There are two schemes that we have to help. Whilst we do not issue borough-wide permits to carers, we do run a healthcare permit scheme which allows healthcare providers one hour’s parking on certain restrictions to attend health calls and appointments.

“Also, residents can purchase visitor vouchers that can be handed to visitors if they have more than one carer arriving at a time.”