Former Wellington mayor Kerry Prendergast challenged a ticket for parking on a footpath in Victoria St. Photo / Catherine Hutton
Former Wellington mayor Dame Kerry Prendergast has won a fight with her former council over a $40 parking ticket.
In a just-released decision, two Justices of the Peace ruled the Wellington City Council could not show it had correctly designated the Victoria St area, where Prendergast was ticketed, as a footpath.
Prendergast told NZME the decision showed the council needed to be careful in its processes.
“You can’t just decide something is no parking unless you’ve been through the proper legal process and promulgated it as no parking,” she said.
Council spokesperson Richard MacLean said the council had only just received the decision and it would take a few days to consider the practical implications.
That includes the implications for those who have already been ticketed for parking in the area.
The council earlier told NZME that between January and July this year, it issued 113 parking tickets for parking on a footpath.
Prendergast said she expected anyone who had been ticketed in that area to be refunded.
Prendergast, who was the Capital’s mayor between 2001 and 2010, did not deny parking in the area in January this year, but maintained she “did not park on a footpath” which is what she was ticketed for.
In a statement prepared for the court, Prendergast said she parked her car on a paved section of slip-road between Dixon and Ghuznee Sts.
There are no markings, signs or notices to notify drivers that parking is not allowed on the roadway.
She said she was disputing the ticket because the area was ambiguous, and she contended she did not park on the footpath.
At October’s hearing in the Wellington District Court the principal transport engineer Dennis Davis told the hearing the area in question had been designed for pedestrians and “the area is considered a footpath by council”.
Davis also referred to the Proposed Traffic Resolution that made changes to the area in 2015 with specific reference to improving pedestrian facilities.
“By improving these facilities to a tree-lined pedestrian-friendly boulevard, Wellington City Council and its Central City Framework (2013) hope to increase patronage in the area.”
Prendergast, who represented herself at the hearing, called one witness, her husband and former Wellington City councillor Rex Nicholls.
Nicholls told the court the traffic resolution for the area was about a road, not slipways.
“If it was to be a footpath it would have to be designated footpath. There should have been a traffic resolution promulgated that this little piece of land is a footpath.
“This is definitely a piece of land that nobody has designated,” he said.
The JPs agreed. The decision found the WCC needed to prove it made a Traffic Resolution confirming what constituted road and footpath in Victoria St.
It said no information was placed before the court on the outcome of any consultation identified in the Proposed Traffic Resolution, or what steps had been taken to make it into a resolution.
“No evidence was offered to conclusively prove that the Proposed Traffic Resolution became a duly approved Traffic Resolution and was appropriately promulgated.
“The case is therefore not proven beyond reasonable doubt. Charges dismissed. Defendant discharged”, the decision said.
Catherine Hutton is an Open Justice reporter, based in Wellington. She has worked as a journalist for 20 years, including at the Waikato Times and RNZ. Most recently she was working as a media adviser at the Ministry of Justice.
A three-week inquest in Hamilton is investigating the Olympian's death in 2021 aged 24.