A Merseyside man has demanded compensation from Bristol City Council after he was threatened with a driving fine despite never visiting the city.
Ian Hughes said he was "disgusted" with Bristol City Council after he received a letter warning he'd receive a fine if he made the "same journey" in the city after the scheme starts on November 28. The letters warned them that, while they weren’t being fined for that trip, they would be if they make the same journey into the Clean Air Zone.
But Mr Hughes, from Prescot, said he had never visited Bristol before - and "naturally assumed" the only reason he could have been contacted was because his car number plate had been cloned.
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Mr Hughes was wrongly contacted after it turns out the council's cameras struggled to correctly identify some letters on vehicle registration plates. The Prescot man has demanded compensation for the council's mistake after he spent four and a half hours informing "the DVLA, two police forces and various other departments, as per advice from the UK government".
Bristol City Council started sending letters last week to drivers using vehicles that had been triggered by the new cameras on the edge of the clean air zone during a three-week trial period in September. The clean air zone covers a wide stretch of Bristol leaving motorists the choice between a £9 fee or a long detour.
The letter falsely sent to Mr Hughes and other vehicle owners warned them they would be fined if they made the same journey into the zone after the scheme starts on November 28.
Mr Hughes criticised Bristol City Council and demanded compensation for the stress the ordeal has put him through. Demanding £300 in compensation for his time, which he said was his "cost to sort out your error and ineptness", he added: “You simply cannot expect to send out these inaccurate letters and then not cover the genuine time costs to correct your mistakes.”
Mr Hughes told BristolLive : "I have requested £300 compensation for my time in dealing with Bristol City Council's absolute ineptness. They don't understand the stress and anxiety caused by thinking your vehicle has been cloned.
"They couldn't run a tea party. Since putting this on the Bristol City Council Facebook page I've been contacted by several other people who have had the same experience as me wasting their time and being upset and worried about the vehicle being cloned. I’ve never been to Bristol in my life and certainly will never go, I feel sorry for the people of Bristol having such a bunch of clowns running their city."
Bristol City Council said its advice to anyone who appears to have been sent a letter in error is to just ignore it. But the council admitted there is a problem with the cameras not being able to correctly identify some letters on vehicle registration plates.
In a statement, Bristol City Council said: “It's possible that the Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) cameras set up to monitor traffic in the Clean Air Zone misread your registration number. If you weren't in Bristol in September, ignore the letter.”
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