Days after being found guilty of administration causing injustice, the council yesterday admitted that anyone who was given a fine, called an excess charge, where the lines or signs do not follow the letter of the law is entitled to claim their money back.

And the council revealed that it is to recruit independent consultants to carry out a review of all the parking lines and signs on the 400 streets which make up the scheme.

Council chief executive John Trebble suggested the use of external consultants during a meeting of the cabinet at the Town Hall yesterday.

The moves come after a local government ombudsman investigation which discovered faults in the on-street parking scheme and that the council had prosecuted people in the wrong court.

To claim your money back, you need to state the time, date and the name of the street where you got their ticket, as well as vehicle registration number.

The cabinet was originally being recommended to take "no further remedial action" in light of the ombudsman's guilty verdict. Mr Trebble had claimed the faults with the scheme were minor but now accepted the findings of the investigation in full, including the ombudsman's view that the faults with the scheme were "more than minor".

The move came after Scarborough MP Lawrie Quinn yesterday urged the council to give people the facts the locations of faults with the town's on-street parking scheme — and said the ombudsman might be called in again in the public's interest to resolve the council's position.

The council has claimed its own investigation found faults with 187 of the 8,112 parking spaces, but said they have all now been fixed.

Mr Quinn called for the authority to release details of exactly where these faults are, but it has refused.
The figures it gave for the number of faults and its claim they have all been fixed have also been called into question after faults were still found to exist with the lines and signs on a number of Scarborough's streets.

At a meeting of the council's cabinet yesterday, chief executive John Trebble, said: "It is clear that anyone parking in any of those 187 spaces could, if they over-stayed their time limit, have received an excess fine.

"Members of the public who feel they have had excess charges served wrongly should approach the council themselves, formally and in writing, as this is necessary for our audit trail and the need to make sure they are bona fide."

Details of how motorists can apply for their money back will also soon be placed on Scarborough Council's website at www.scarborough.gov.uk