4:34pm Thursday 18th March 2010
By Andrew Napier
Winchester residents are being offered £250 to illegally sell their parking permits to a commuter.
Several people have received a letter from a Kings Worthy woman offering them money for their permits.
The city council has said it is investigating the allegation into attempted fraud.
Such misuse of permits, widely introduced across the city centre in 1996, has been a chronic problem for several years.
The visitor permits cost £50 a year. Commuters using them can save hundreds of pounds a year by not buying a season ticket in civic car parks.
In 2004 the Daily Echo revealed a black market with motorists paying up to £500 for permits in the Water Lane area.
Paul Wing, of Silchester Place, Hyde, was among residents to receive an unsigned letter on Sunday. He showed the letter to the Daily Echo although declined to reveal the identity of the sender because he didn’t them to get into trouble.
Mr Wing said he had called the mobile phone number on the letter to verify it was genuine.
The letter said: “I work in Winchester and am finding the parking charges increasingly difficult to afford. I wonder if you would be able to provide me with a visitors parking permit, and in return I could afford to pay you £250.”
Mr Wing added: “I was very cross. So many residents have complained to me about the lack of spaces available to legitimate permit holders, and the fact that some commuters are now trying to obtain visitor permits dubiously for use on a regular basis is just not acceptable.
“These are tough times for us all and I wonder how people must feel to hear that a minority of unscrupulous people are cheating the system.”
A city council spokesman said: “We are taking these claims very seriously and are investigating the letter. We are trying to find out how many people have received it.”
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