traffic warden and car with numerous parking ticketsAnybody who wants to be a traffic warden or who wants to make decisions about parking ought to be immediately banned from doing so.

In the past few days Westminster Council's leader has had to resign after trying – and failing – to impose night-time parking charges in London. And Southend's councillors used technology to ensure local parking officers could not issue councillors with tickets.

Hated

Is it any wonder that parking tickets are such a bugbear for so many people? The Mail today (new window) is reporting the case of Anthony Mottram who stopped to help an injured motorcyclist and, rather than block the road, moved his car onto the pavement and was given a £110 parking ticket while helping the unconscious biker.

The description of the parking attendant issuing a ticket even though he could see the man helping the injured road accident victim, then being off-hand with him and ultimately refusing to rescind the ticket despite the police explaining the car driver's heroics will come as no surprise to anyone who has had to deal with these numbskulls.

Wrong policy

The people who set the policy for parking attendants are pathetic too. Colin Barrow is to resign as leader of Westminster Council and stand down as a councillor after championing plans to charge for parking in London's West End throughout the night.

He wasn't just opposed by the Labour opposition. He clashed with a range of high profile political and cultural figures, including London's mayor Boris Johnson, local business leaders, night workers, restaurateurs, clergymen and actors.

The council is currently saying the charges will now not be levied until after the Olympics. Lets hope they get quietly dropped, but knowing Westminster, that's unlikely – it sparked a nationwide row with the motorcycling community when it became the first borough to charge motorbikes and scooters to park in the borough.

Big business

Parking is big business for councils. According to the Taxpayers Alliance, a series of freedom of information requests to councils in 2008-09 found they earned £328m from parking fines.

But it's OK for some. In Southend on Sea, apparently, the council has tinkered with a new computer system for its parking attendants, adding in the councillors' car registration numbers so that their wardens will not be able to issue parking tickets no matter how illegally the councillors are parked. That's a disgrace.

Wrong people

It's time for a change. The sort of person who wants to be a parking attendant ought be exactly the sort of person who is excluded from the job. Anyone who thinks the sole aim is to issues as many tickets as possible or raise as much money as possible – the sort who hide in bushes waiting for drivers to park and nip to the shops – is a no-no.

We need people whose first thought would be to look for a good reason not to issue a ticket, who might use commonsense and weigh up the circumstances, who might even offer help or guidance on where else to park or how to avoid fines. We don't need jobsworths.

And we need people who are polite and charming and approachable, not the aggressive, surely, miserable gits we have now.

And we need decisions on parking policy to be separated from the financial side – all parking fine money should be given to motoring charities and not retained by the fining authority - so there's no financial incentive to issue more tickets.