Adelaide nurse wins streetside battle with city council parking inspectors

As Adelaide City Council prepares to train eight new parking inspectors, one nurse is celebrating victory after she was fined way before her ticket expired.

Adelaide City Councillor Carmel Noon tried to stop a council parking ticket cash grab. Picture: Supplied

As Adelaide City Council prepares to train eight new parking inspectors one Adelaide Hills nurse is celebrating victory over a dodgy meters.

Grace Evans, 26, was shocked when she returned from a medical appointment to her parking spot to find she was being fined only 30 minutes into a one-hour stint.

“This is a warning to all people parking in the city,’’ she said in a Facebook warning.

“The ticket lady was still there when I got to my car, but I had to convince her to cancel the $58 fine for something I didn’t even do.

“She accused me of paying for a ticket, then another one (without moving the car) to cover me for two hours.”

Ms Evans said the inspector revealed sensors implanted in the road service often failed at this time of year.

She was told piles of leaves were misread by the sensor as being a car that had not moved for more than one hour.

“She said I was meter-feeding, which is when someone parks and pays for an hour and then comes back without moving to pay for another hour,’’ Ms Evans said.

Grace Evans had a parking ticket overturned because of a council machine failure. Picture: Grace Evans.

Grace Evans had a parking ticket overturned because of a council machine failure. Picture: Grace Evans.

Adelaide City Council manager Steve Zaluski said: “In the event the technology has an issue, parking and information officers always make the determination whether a vehicle has exceeded the time limit, or whether there are other contributing factors”.

Adelaide City Council on Tuesday night passed a draft budget that will add eight parking inspectors to the current team of 24.

This will raise an additional $2.4 million in revenue.

The council also wants to raise an additional $910,000 in parking fees, up from $12m.

The plan will be achieved by doubling weekend parking rates to $5 per time period, and also classifying more parts of the city in higher-fee parking zones.

Councillor Carmel Noon on Tuesday night tried but failed to have the fee increases changed to only a 5 per cent increase, to help struggling city businesses.