Family vows never to return to Cornwall after racking up £760 in parking tickets

A family have hit out after they were slapped with over £700 of parking fines. David Watt was holidaying in Cornwall with his family as he says they have done for the past 40 years.

However, they have vowed never to return after being issued with 12 tickets, most of which were for parking whilst he popped to the shop each morning.

The tickets, issued over 12 days as a result of footage from automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras, landed on his mat after he returned home from his break in Polzeath, North Cornwall.

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He has confessed to not buying a ticket on each occasion and says he offered to pay compensation to the parking firm involved but says this was rejected. He now says the "exorbitant, over-the-top fines do not fit the crime" after being forced to cough up £760.

In a letter to CornwallLive about his ordeal, Mr Watt said: “For as long as I can remember, we have rented houses in Trebetherick, and each morning, as an early riser, I have driven down to the Spar in Polzeath to collect papers and croissants for our guests.

"There used to be free parking spaces outside the Spar in Polzeath but these have now been cordoned off.

"As each visit was for just a few minutes, and the car park was empty, I confess to not buying a ticket, but had I been staying longer I of course would not have risked a parking ticket and have paid.

"In all the years I have been doing this I have never received a ticket of any type, because my stays were so brief and so early that parking attendants were not around. Was I in the wrong? Probably, but I don’t think that I was committing a serious crime."

Yet when he returned home he found