By Rachel Morton
Phoenix football fans whose cars were ticketed when the game went into extra time will have the infringements waived, the Wellington City Council announced today.
Parking was free for 90 minutes, but the city’s revenue collectors gave in to temptation when the game stretched to more than two-and-a-half hours.
Fans left the Westpac Trust Stadium ecstatic following the victorious play-off match against Perth Glory. But moods soured when they returned to their cars to find they had been ticketed for $21 - on a Sunday - for parking too long.
“This is a commercial area, it should be free parking really,” says ticketed parker Jeff Greenfield.
“It’s over the top and unreasonable – they just need some common sense.”
Inquiries from 3 News prompted Wellington Mayor Kerry Prendergast to announce the council would waive the fines for most people who received a ticket.
“The people who parked illegally at bus stops, or displayed no current warrant of fitness will not have their tickets waived,” he says.
A private company is contracted to issue parking fines, and fans believe they were preyed upon in a blatant revenue-collecting scheme.
“It looked like this had been planned at a management level, because normally they don’t ticket on a Sunday,” says ticketed parker Craig Crestani.
“It’s like they went, ‘Here’s an opportunity to really come down here and clean up.'”
The council says it doesn’t have the power to permanently extend parking times near the stadium.
“We had a lot of trouble getting resource consent for this part of the city,” says Mr Prendergrast. “The Thorndon residents only gave conditional support in the end, with a lot of rigid controls around car parking.”
Given the outrage last night’s parking blitz created, the council may tell its parking enforcement contractor to back off for the Phoenix home semi-final, on Sunday, March 7.
3 News