I am writing to you with reference to an incident involving my car in Campanet on 17/10/18.
I will only give a short outline of the circumstances leading up to the incident and the response from the local council. If you do wish then for more details or are interested in covering the story then I will include my contact details below.
Over the past few months Campanet council decided to badly construct a new parking area on the outside of the village centre. They then proceeded to dig up and change the pavements within the main streets of the village and part of the central area near the church and main square. On the day of the 17 October starting very close to the area that cars can pass through in front of the church they installed dark brown metal poles continuing all the way down the main road. There was no notices or information saying that the poles had been installed and none of the poles had reflective strips or any kind of illumination (eventually they have now put reflective strips on them). This immediately reduced the parking spaces for cars in that area.
At 19.30 that evening I was in the centre of Campanet and my car was parked in one of the few remaining parking spaces on the other side of the main square. I was then leaving Campanet and as it is possible to drive through in front of the church I proceeded to. As I entered this area I was surprised to see that there were many cars parked there in this drive through area including somebody delivering to the local store. As I was driving through the middle of the parked cars another car entered from the other side. My only option was to pull in to was a small place on my left hand side for the car to pass. When it had passed I tried to pull out that was when I was in collision with one of the poles they had installed that day.
The following morning I returned to Campanet, I entered the council office and made a reclamation and police report regarding what had occurred and the damage the pole had caused to my car. Since then I have returned once a week to find out if they would accept responsibility for the damage to my car. Finally last week when I went to the council office they handed me a notification denying responsibility, giving the reason that the poles where correctly placed.
I do not contest whether the poles were correctly placed. As previously mentioned it was 19.30, nearly dark, dark brown posts, no notices that they had been installed and no reflective strip, that is what I contest.
Subsequently that very same post was hit by three other cars the next day and many other incidents throughout the village involving these posts. Also I have witnesses to the incident and some of the businesses say that they have lost revenue since the parking has been dramatically reduced within the center of the village.
Regards,
Darren Smith
