Scotland’s leading independent courier firm is gearing up for another fight against Glasgow City Council over parking tickets issued on its vehicles.
Eagle Couriers, which has offices in Garscube Road, has appealed against a ticket that was issued on one of its courier bikes in the city centre earlier this month.
The courier was collecting a parcel from a client in Robertson Street in Glasgow’s city centre on June 2. He parked the bike, with a little part of it sticking out into a loading bay.
The bike was parked at 9.03am. By the time he returned at 9.07am he had a ticket on the part of the bike hanging over – it had been issued at 9.06am.
Eagle are vowing to fight the charge.
The ticket is the latest in a list of fines that have been issued on Eagle Couriers bikes in the city. Earlier this year, the firm lost a year-long appeal over two of the penalty charges issued by Glasgow Council on its vehicles – as the local authority refused to accept that the courier bikes were goods vehicles and therefore ruled that they couldn’t park in the city’s loading bays when delivering packages.
Jerry Stewart, one of Eagle Couriers directors, said: “This isn’t the first time that we’ve had problems with regard to parking tickets in Glasgow. We’ve been fined before for parking in loading bays – despite the fact our bikes are insured-classed as goods vehicles – so we’re disappointed that the wardens have targeted us again.
“In this case, our courier was forced to park as well as he could into a bike parking bay, but due to the lack of space some of the vehicle was in the adjacent loading bay. This shouldn’t have been a problem – as our bikes are insuranced classed as goods vehicles – but once again we’ve been punished for ‘illegal’ parking in the city.
“The simple fact is that we use motorbikes as they are easier to manoeuvre round the city, more environmentally friendly than other vehicles and do not cause congestion. We carry out hundreds of delivery jobs in Glasgow every day and our drivers have to stop outside offices in order to unload the goods they are delivering.
“We’re clearly causing less hassle than a van or truck does when it’s unloading on the side of the road, but we still get penalised heavily just for trying to do our job. In this case, we even tried to use a motorbike bay in order to avoid any confusion but, as some of the bike poked out into the loading bay, we were given yet another ticket.
“We feel that Glasgow City Council is being unreasonable and is continuing to put obstructions in our way. We’re carrying out a vital service to the city’s economy, but we’re being thwarted by parking wardens who are not using common sense when it comes to issuing tickets.
“We’ll be fighting this latest charge just as fiercely as the previous tickets we’ve received.”
