Parking problem makes its way to university

Academic staff at the university are at loggerheads with the precincts office after it started cracking down on illegal parking at the start of another traffic-choked term.

Staff claim that students are parking in their reserved spaces, leaving them with no choice but to park illegally - and be clamped as a result.

But, as the estimated 1,000 staff and 9,000 students compete for the limited parking space on the university grounds, the precincts office insisted that the rules applied to everybody.

At stake is not the Lm10 fine to get one's car unclamped but the principle of treating staff fairly, the academic workers say.

One university professor, who had his car clamped this week, was clearly upset when he complained about the parking woes to the precincts office.

"I was told I would find a parking place if I looked around properly. I was also informed that other academic staff had been clamped and fined and therefore there was no need for all the fuss," Paul Micallef, head of department of communication and computer engineering, said.

He said that the nature of the academic staff's work necessitated on several occasions the need to leave the university premises for meetings - making it practically impossible to find a parking space on their return.

"It is not fair to expect academic staff to spend 30 or 40 minutes going in and out of various car parks in the hope of finding a space," he said.

The system has become more chaotic than ever since the start of the new term this month.

"We hope that other academic staff who, like me, are fed up with the situation will speak up so that the authorities really do something about it," Prof. Micallef said.

"This year the problem is much worse, leaving us with no option but to breach traffic regulations," he added.

When contacted, precincts officer Joe Camilleri confirmed that two or three academic staff members were having their car clamped daily for parking illegally.

Mr Camilleri said that academic staff had a number of car parks reserved exclusively for them.

He said that lecturers are not normally present at university at the same time and so parking slots should be easier to find, though he admitted that the number of cars on campus always seemed on the increase.

Mr Camilleri said that a daily inspection was carried out to ensure that students were not parked in areas reserved for academic staff and any such vehicles were clamped.

"Unfortunately, you will always find some staff members who expect to park outside their lecture room," he said.