A HEALTH worker is furious at being handed a parking fine despite using the new pay-by-phone system for a long-stay car park in Burnt Oak.

Barbara Primus, 54, had used the electronic system successfully for three weeks while parking in Burnt Oak car park behind Watling Avenue, as she travelled to Islington every day for a course.

However, on January 25, she was given a parking ticket despite getting electronic confirmation she had paid to park there that day.

The Reddings, Mill Hill resident said: “I'm so incensed by it I've asked the council for £20 compensation for the time I have had to spend appealing this wrong ticket.

“I had a text and email confirming the parking, but obviously something went wrong with the attendant's terminal as he issued the ticket.

“I scanned in the ticket and attached the email and gave them a deadline of the end of February, but I haven't heard anything back from them at all.”

Rules brought in in December mean anyone parking in a bay where a meter is not working must use the pay-by-phone system or be ticketed for failing to pay.

Last week the Times Series reported the case of 81-year-old William Moller who was fined for not using the pay-by-phone system after parking in a bay with a broken meter, despite having no mobile phone.

Previously Councillor Brian Coleman, who is in charge of parking in Barnet, has stated a desire to make the borough's parking services “completely cashless” in a bid to cut costs.

A statement from Barnet Council apologised for issuing the ticket to the GP practise manager and said it would be revoked.

It added: “Our cashless parking system requires that enforcement officers refresh the handheld devices, which they use to check whether a customer has paid for parking, on a regular basis.

“Unfortunately on this occasion this did not happen.

“It is not the council’s policy to provide financial compensation unless proof of any costs necessarily and unavoidably incurred can be provided”.