A RODBOURNE woman is risking jail by refusing to pay fines for parking in her own street.
Magistrates have ordered Karen Farrell, 28, to pay £255 for failing to settle three fines for parking on double yellow lines near her home in Redcliffe Street in June.
But she is still refusing to pay, claiming she has been forced to park on the yellow lines, as customers avoiding paying to park at the nearby Great Western Outlet Village have taken all the legal spaces.
Miss Farrell is furious with the police who gave her the tickets, claiming they are "nothing but glorified traffic wardens" who should be tackling more serious crimes.
She is also angry with Swindon Council, saying it has failed to act on her frequent requests to set up a residents' parking scheme in the street and keep out the outlet village customers.
Miss Farrell is now seeking to have her case re-opened by the courts, but is adamant she will not pay what she considers an unfair penalty.
"I have never had a criminal record in my life but I am not going to pay," she said.
"The money isn't the point, it's the fact that the authorities won't do anything to help us. I thought that was what they were there for."
Miss Farrell is one of a growing number of Redcliffe Street residents refusing to pay their parking tickets in the current circum-stances.
Earlier this month, her neigh-bours Emma and Simon Harris said they would not be paying the £400 they owed the courts in parking fines.
Both the Harris' and Miss Farrell are angry that shoppers are often allowed to park on double yellow lines without challenge during the day.
But they say residents who park on the lines at night often find a ticket on their windscreens in the morning.
Another neighbour, Sarah Heads, is also fed up with having to cart her seven week-old baby Caitlin several hundred yards between her house and her car.
"It seems really daft that the outlet centre is only across the road and there is no resident parking here," she said.
"The centre must be losing a lot of money because of parking down the street, and for us it's just a nightmare."
Swindon Police's Superintendant Julian Kirby has repeatedly claimed officers were trying to strike a balance between policing parking and serious crime, but that he would rather catch one serious criminal than 100 illegal parkers.
No-one was available to comment from Swindon Council.
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