A campaign urging Pembrokeshire County Council to allow on-duty carers' cars to be exempt from current parking restrictions in Tenby has been won.

Since the local authority took over civil parking enforcement in February, many carers have received parking fines while they have been on calls.

Concerned about their plight, Annie Bradforth, daughter-in-law of well-known Tenby artist Eric, who has carers call three times a day to his home in Trafalgar Road, launched a petition calling for restrictions to be waived for them while they are at work.

She collected over 1,400 signatures and presented the petition to the council's director of transportation and environment, Ian Westley, at a meeting.

Annie also received support in her campaign from AM Angela Burns.

Said Annie: "Mr. Westley was sympathetic and helpful in equal measure. Because the Welsh Assembly would have to pass legislation to give carers parity with doctors and nurses in the matter of parking, Mr. Westley chose to adopt a pragmatic approach.

"In effect, he proposed that carers could park anywhere 'except' on double yellow lines, disabled bays and in obviously dangerous places.

"If they happen to incur penalty tickets, upon verification by their bosses that they were at work at the time the ticket was issued, any such penalty would be waived as a matter of course. A victory, albeit a minor one!"

And she continued: "Via the Observer, I'd like to express my grateful thanks to all those who supported me by adding their names to the petition and to reassure them, if they had doubts, that there is some goodwill to be found in those who run our affairs. In particular, I want to thank Ian Westley."

Mr. Westley was due to give a report to yesterday's (Thursday's) environment, overview and scrutiny committee in which he said that in order to address the issue and to take due account of 'potentially conflicting opinion', the care providers had been advised that their staff should at all times adhere to existing parking restrictions.

"On occasion when this is deemed impracticable and a care provider is in receipt of a penalty charge notice, their employer is to write to the parking services manager confirming that their employer was on duty at the specified location at the time of the offence," said Mr. Westley in his report.

"In this instance, the PCN will be waived. Home care providers are reminded that in no way does this proposal provide an exemption to parking restrictions. Since the implementation of this proposal, no further problems have been reported."

It was recommended that Mr. Wesley's response be noted and the committee receive a further report on the impacts and implementation of civil parking enforcement at the end of the financial year.