WORCESTER City Council is ignoring the advice of an independent adjudicator who has recommended that they tear up a parking ticket given to a health worker who moved his car to make way for an injured soldier.

NHS podiatrist Keith Turner was given the parking ticket outside the Moor Street Podiatry Clinic off the Tything in Worcester on Thursday, January 15, after he moved his car to make way for a soldier who had parked in the staff car park by mistake.

Although an independent adjudicator from the Traffic Penalty Tribunal of England and Wales dismissed Mr Turner’s appeal, he urged Worces-ter City Council to cancel the £70 ticket because of the unusual “extenuating circumstances”.

We reported the story in your Worcester News on Monday when Mr Turner said he still saw the ruling as a victory for common sense even though the adjudicator dimissed his appeal.

But in a letter from Doreen Porter, the council’s legal and democratic services manager, sent on Tuesday, October 13, Mr Turner was told he must pay the £70 fine within 28 days and that if he does not pay within this time the fine will go up to £105.

Mr Turner, aged 50, of Medici Road, Broms-grove, said he was surprised and disappointed the council had ignored the advice of the independent adjudicator.

He said: “I think it’s a nonsense. They have ignored what the adjudicator has said. I find it quite staggering. They are asking for £70 but for me it’s not about the money, it’s the principle.”

In the letter Doreen Porter says Mr Turner told a traffic warden at the time that he had parked there because the car park was full and there was “no record” of him moving his car to allow someone to leave the clinic car park.

She also says that he did not stay with his car and move it back into the clinic car park once he had let the man out and that the car was parked on the highway, not private land.

“I can find no grounds to change the original decision of the city council and I therefore have to inform you that the penalty charge notice remains payable,” she said in the letter.

Mr Turner says he now plans to write to the council’s chief executive. He has not yet made up his mind whether to pay the fine but says it is unlikely he will take the case to judicial review.