I’ve checked with my sources, and the story is true.

At Poplar ambulance station there is no room to park.  The station itself is tiny, barely bigger than a portacabin.  There is a big metal fence and electric gate around it.  There is minimal parking.

So the ambulances park out on the street – if they didn’t then every emergency call would be delayed by minutes as the crews wait for the gate to open and then maneuver the ambulances out.  This would be very bad for the patients (and more importantly, extremely bad for our ORCON times).

There is nowhere else to park.

So…a couple of days ago the ambulances all got parking tickets.

Apparently there is a man who lives in one of the nearby tower blocks who keeps complaining because his daughter nearly had an accident pulling out of the turning.

So a nice man from the council (or a parking warden) came around and put tickets on the ambulances.  In his defence he did try to not ticket them by telling the crews to drive around the block…

The ambulance crews find this all very amusing.

(We are, by our driving exemptions allowed to park where we like as long as it’s not ‘dangerous’, we are guessing that this man has complained so much the council has been spurred into action).