An Edinburgh man has been slapped with a £30 fine by the council for abandoning his car at an electric charging point after falling ill.
Walter Grieve, 66, was fined by Edinburgh Council after he failed to collect his motor from a charging hub at Drumbrae Library within the 12 hour limit.
He had left the car on march 6 to power up but became sick with a stomach bug, reports Edinburgh Live.
He claims his attempts to explain the situation to the council fell on deaf ears.
Walter emailed Edinburgh Council but only received one response over a three-month period despite escalating the query to a complaint.
He said: "I usually charge it for about six or seven hours. You register with the council and get a card to use their electric car charging points then you receive an invoice later.
"I had left my car on charge at ten in the morning and went home to have some lunch, I had been feeling unwell but managed to eat some food then became much more unwell later on.
"I had an upset stomach and was an hour late collecting it, when I arrived at around 11.30pm I knew it had gone over the 12 hours limit. So I emailed the council early the next day to explain as I knew I would get a fine. I received the £30 overstay fine on March 6, and 11 weeks later I have still had no official response.
"I chased up my appeal three times in the following weeks having had no response. I then made a formal complaint to Edinburgh Council by telephone. I had to chase that up a couple of times over the following weeks. This resulted in one email stating they would get back to me by the end of that week but never did.
"I then raised this lack of response from the council with my local councillor who is 'looking into it', but I have still had no proper response and it is now about 11 weeks since I first appealed!"
He continued: "It's the whole process of emailing and not getting a response, chasing it up and not getting a response, to then complaining and still not getting a response.
"Finally they got in touch today and asked for evidence to back up my extenuating circumstances but I had a stomach bug and diarrhoea - you wouldn't go to the GP for that even if you could get an appointment.
"It's coming up for three months now since I got the ticket and it still has not been dealt with which is frustrating."
A spokeswoman for the council told Edinburgh Live that officers have now responded to Walter and will now assess the appeal as a priority.
Recent data showed that appeals against the £30 fines handed to drivers for parking in Edinburgh charging bays for too long have had a near 50 percent success rate.
The figures revealed that 103 out of 226 overstay tickets have been cancelled since penalties were introduced a year ago.
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