A well-planned retirement



Wednesday 11 January 2012

A well-planned retirement

A reader has emailed us this news story which APPARENTLY appeared in The Times in London and we thought you'd like it. It might make you think twice about paying parking fees.

From The Times - A well-planned retirement 

Outside England's Bristol Zoo there is a parking lot for 150 cars and 8 buses. For 25 years its parking fees were managed by a very pleasant attendant. The fees were for cars £ 1.40, for buses about £ 7.

Then, one day, after 25 solid years of never missing a day of work, he just didn't show up so the Zoo management called the City Council and asked it to send another parking agent.

The Council did some research and replied that the parking lot was the Zoo's own responsibility. The Zoo advised the Council that the attendant was a City employee.

The City Council responded that the lot attendant had never been on the City payroll.

Meanwhile, sitting in his villa somewhere on the coast of Spain or France or Italy is a man who'd apparently had a ticket machine installed completely on his own, and then had simply begun to show up everyday to collect and keep the parking fees estimated at around £ 560 per day - for 25 years.

Assuming 7 days a week, this amounts to just over £ 7 million, and no one even knows his name. 

Read more of today's news. Check out The Newsport home page.