A CARE home worker is angry he was given a parking ticket for picking up an immobile 99-year-old woman in Petersfield, which took five minutes.

Driver Chris Page said the “abrupt” way he was treated by the parking attendant over the incident outside Winton House in High Street was unacceptable.

The trips of the more immobile elderly residents to the drop-in centre, which provides a vital social lifeline, could now be in jeopardy too.

Chris usually parks in the disabled bay outside the centre, which provides the elderly woman with her one outing a week, but this was occupied, and there were no spaces nearby.

So, knowing she could only walk a few metres with her wheeled walker, he felt he had no option but to park in the taxi bay, displaying a blue disabled badge and a clock in the window.

“When I came out of the centre five minutes later, escorting the lady, I?was just in time to see the parking attendant sticking the parking notice on the windscreen,” he said.

“The vehicle has a full graphics package showing it clearly belongs to a care home and the clock in the windscreen showed I had been here no more than five minutes.”

He said he explained the situation but was told that working for a care organisation he should know a disabled badge could not be used in a taxi bay.

“I questioned where I could park that would be within walking distance for this lady and she turned her back on me and walked off up High Street.”

He was not impeding traffic flow, he says, last Monday at noon, and the vehicle was positioned safely.

He has given his ticket to the management at Downs House care home in Petersfield to appeal, and is to talk to Winton House about how to improve the situation.

Centre manager Sheridan Rocher said perhaps there could be more leniency. The Age Concern minibus was permitted to park in the taxi bay twice a week and this worked well.

A?spokesman for East Hampshire District Council said:?“If anyone has been issued a ticket they don’t agree with, they have the right to challenge it. We would encourage them to get in touch.”