Parking payments offline

My first parking ticket – ever – in the lovely village of Westminster. Returning to my car 4 minutes after my ticket expired, I was greeted by the warden taking photos of the car and posting a ticket under the windscreen wiper. Ho hum.

I imagine one of the busiest times to pay fines is Saturday after a day shopping in town and, judging by how many tickets the guy was handing out in the street I was in, I’d be right.

So when would you schedule a significant upgrade of your online payment service? Not Saturday afternoon surely? From westminster.gov.uk:

This service allows you to pay Westminster City Council parking tickets online.
Online payments is currently unavailable (Saturday 26/11/05).

This is to allow a system upgrade to be put into place.

This upgrade is schedule to take place between 16:00 and 21:00.

Whilst this system is unavailable, please telephone our Parking Contact Centre on 020 7823 4567, who will be happy to assist you in paying your parking ticket.

Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience caused.

Great. It’s a shame that they can’t even get the English right in the notice.