I WOULD like to take issue with the opinion in your editorial regarding giving powers of discretion to Parkwise wardens.

If you were to permit these powers to wardens they could spend their days listening to excuses from ticketed drivers.

While few would be as noble as the gentleman featured in your front page article, when it comes to £30 cash some people, knowing that the warden has the power to turn a blind eye, will be as persuasive as their imagination allows.

I'm sure that hearing single parents on a budget' explaining that they can't afford to receive a fine because they need all their money for petrol to get to hospital to see their sick child will only add to the stress of the warden's job.

There could even be those, once aware that a warden has powers of discretion, who may include bribery in their unpersuasive arguments.

I am sure that every single warden would be insulted by such arguments and prefer not to be put in such an invidious position. After all, that's not what they are paid for.

In the interests of fairness, the ticket must be issued and the appropriate appeals process allowed to run its course based on the individual merit of each case.

In this case, it seems that the fine should be waived at appeal.

I would like to believe that this would have been the case, without the intervention of the Press. If the appeal is refused, then an injustice has occurred and should be reported as such. Public acrimony would then fall on the people directly responsible for the unreasonable Parkwise rules.

Surely a more suitable target than a warden described by Mr Bridge as "like a machine," whose plea that she "didn't make the rules" left you all so unmoved.

MR ANDREW BERRY, Maricourt Ave, Blackburn.