Wildman,
Forgive not staying on topic but this could be of interest to some.
It might have been me who caused the council to drop their worrying about people parking overnight on their car parks. I got a ticket. Woke up to find a ticket on the driver's window, camping, cooking, sleeping.
I didn't pay it.
I accused them of creeping round in the middle of the night targetting just ME. I said I would prove that in court because I'd ask them to produce overtime records for the parking attendants and see if it was routine to provide parking patrols in the middle of the night.
Then I said that they would have to prove that I was sleeping in the van because they'd obviously not knocked on the door – or maybe they had knocked on the door and there was no answer because I wasn't there.
The final thing was that I used this
http://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/977180.council_powerless_to_ban_camper_vans/ as an example of councils telling fibs about what powers they had to control overnight parking, and that I couldn't understand why councils had to lie to council tax payers. I would make them prove in court they truly did have the power to give me a ticket - they call it an excess charge notice.
They tried to get me to pay the fine while they looked at the circumstances again warning me that the fine would be greater if I didn't pay within so many days. I told them that there was no chance of me giving them an interest free loan and I would tell the court about their intimidation. However, I did pay online by credit card quoting only the notice serial number and not putting my name on it.
All this done by email from Ilfracombe High Street.
The fine was cancelled, but they didn't tell me why, and they did notice that I had paid because the fine was refunded to my credit card. I was desperate to know why they had cancelled it but we were on our way to France and by the time we got back I couldn't be bothered.
But, there you are, the more relaxed attitude could have been down to me. We'll be in Ilfracombe again some time this year. There's a carpark part way up the hill out of Hele Bay towards Combe Martin looks a good place to stay, yes?
Tom