AROUND half a million pounds worth of parking tickets were incorrectly handed out to drivers in the borough, the Times can reveal. For the financial year 2008/09 a staggering 15,533 Penalty Charge Notices (PCNs) were cancelled due to an error or through

AROUND half a million pounds worth of parking tickets were incorrectly handed out to drivers in the borough, the Times can reveal.

For the financial year 2008/09 a staggering 15,533 Penalty Charge Notices (PCNs) were cancelled due to an error or through a challenge from a driver.

One politician is now demanding an overhaul of parking policy in Brent after deriding it as 'confusing' and accusing it of 'conning' residents.

Cllr Muhammed Butt, Labour deputy leader, said: "Our Lib Dem council has collected �11 million fines from the hard pressed residents of Brent, thanks to them increasing charges at car parks, if you can find a space, and from parking permits and parking tickets.

"Not forgetting that they installed new meters that take credit cards and text messages for payment, what happened to paying things for cash?

"There is confusion everyday now, thanks to all the different times for the Controlled Parking Zones (CPZs), the confusion caused on event days and not forgetting the impact on the local businesses, which are losing out and our Lib Dem council has not got a clue how to help them.

"The CPZs are causing much confusion as there are streets where you can park after 6.30pm and other streets after 9.30pm, there is no uniformity or clarity, that needs to be resolved.

"The worst thing has to be the 15,500 tickets that were wrongly issued or won at appeal, that equates to about thousands that our council would have conned from my constituents.

"They are turning our law abiding citizens into feeling like criminals and out of pocket due to their incompetence."

Cllr Daniel Brown, Liberal Democrat member for highways and transportation said most CPZs were introduced before his party got into power and hours of operation were determined by consultations.

Cllr Brown said: "Unfortunately, when you have human beings doing a job, mistakes sometimes happen.

"The important thing is that residents have a right of appeal if they feel they have been unfairly treated with a parking ticket.

"The contract we have with our parking operator means that they are liable for mistakes and so Brent's tax payers do not have to bear the cost of this."

Cllr Butt is calling for people who have had a problem with parking in any part of the borough to email him at cllr.muhammed.butt@brent. gov.uk