A POTENTIAL strike has been averted after traffic wardens were told to no longer ticket postal workers for parking on double-yellow lines while delivering.
Guidelines published by the South Essex Parking Partnership (SEPP) clearly state that Royal Mail employees should not be ticketed for parking on double-yellows while doing their rounds.
But traffic wardens employed by SEPP have been routinely handing out fines to postal workers amid claims that the parking privilege was being abused.
The Communication Workers' Union (CWU), which represents postal workers, had threatened to hold a ballot for industrial action after many of its members regularly began receiving tickets.
In one example, a postie claimed he had been fined after parking on double-yellow lines for less than one minute.
However, a strike is no longer happening because bosses at SEPP agreed to tell their wardens to stop issuing tickets.
This followed a motion expressing concern over wardens' practices was passed at a meeting of Brentwood Borough Council's Community Services Committee on July 23.
Danny Attfield, 39, a CWU rep at the delivery office in St Thomas Road, said this week: "It got to the point where we couldn't deliver or collect from anywhere where restrictions were in place.
"If the council hadn't intervened I'd have to have said we can't deliver mail to some areas, such as on the High Street."
Mr Attfield said that, so far this year, posties had made three successful appeals against tickets.
He also raised questions about the training traffic wardens were receiving.
"Since we got a copy of SEPP's policies at the end of last year we are starting to win all of our appeals," he said. "My drivers are carrying a copy of the protocol around with them now.
"On one occasion, one of our posties showed the warden the regulations and their response was simply that the document was actually wrong."
Brentwood Borough Councillor Russell Quirk, who represents Hutton North, said the idea that postal workers were abusing the parking privilege by, for example, "nipping off for a hearty lunch" was offensive.
He told the Gazette this week: "No one actually showed or demonstrated any evidence that supported that kind of behaviour was going on.
"It's not as if they are running off down the betting office – they are trying to do their jobs – yet the complaints from Royal Mail workers have fallen on deaf ears."
Cllr Keith Parker, chairman of the South Essex Parking Partnership, said: "Enforcement of on-street parking regulations is now a SEPP responsibility.
"However, we can confirm that there is, and has been for some time, special dispensation under the Traffic Regulation Order and SEPP operational guidelines for liveried postal vehicles to park on single and double-yellow lines while delivering post and packages, as long as they can demonstrate that is their purpose.
"All enforcement officers are undertaking enforcement activities in line with this policy.
"Any postal worker legitimately engaged in postal duties will therefore not receive a penalty.
"This dispensation does not, however, extend to school markings, zigzags, pedestrian crossings, disabled bays and areas that are restricted for loading.
"Parking in these areas would result in the instant issue of a PCN."
