With regard to the story of a blue badge holder receiving a parking ticket (The Argus, January 29), both my late father and my father in-lawboth have used blue badges.

In the case of my father-in-law, due to his glaucoma, I took on the responsibility of renewing the badge for him. At no time was anything received stating which way the badge should be displayed.

Much of the fault lies in the design of the badges. The two components that need checking are that the badge is in date and that the picture of the holder is the person being carried. Yet this information is on opposite sides of the badge.

Therefore it is possible to have a situation where a legally dated badge could belong to someone else, or in the reverse scenario the correctly pictured user is being carried but the card is out of date.

Observers are only able to see one side and there is nothing on them to tell you which way they should be displayed.

Why do we need the issuing council's details on the same side as the date of renewal which makes the holder's picture not visible.

The design of these badges is what is at fault and until the date and picture are on the same side with confirmation of which side to display, incidents as reported in The Argus will continue to happen.

Councils should also learn to differentiate between a small oversight and deliberate abuse of the system - two entirely different things.

  • John Wells, Potters Lane Burgess Hill