Meals On Wheels Service Stopped Leaves One Pensioner Hungry

Patricia Whitwam of Old Chapel Yard, Church Street has been a participant in the Meals on Wheels service for the last eighteen months. The eighty five year old woman is housebound and cannot prepare her own food and was being assisted by the charity. Because of a concern over parking tickets the charity has stopped delivering her meals.

The charity contends that they cannot in good conscience expect their unpaid volunteers to incur parking violations every time they perform their work. The regulation on parking allows for a five-minute grace period but that amount of time is not sufficient for the volunteer to deliver the food properly. It is quite frustrating for the charity that is trying to provide a much needed service to have to check out the parking situation every time they are requested to bring meals, but that is what has happened.

Currently Patricia Whitwam is the only one that is affected by the new parking bans and is losing her food delivery. The family of Ms. Whitwam is outraged by the discontinuance of the service. Patricia’s daughter, Susan Mitchell, says that her mother is being “deprived of an essential service.”

The operations officer for parking services claims that there are exceptions and leeways for services, however the charity is not taking any chances. If a volunteer is deemed to have parked in a potentially dangerous spot they are going to receive a ticket.

It is necessary for this issue to be resolved before many more recipients of services are deprived because of parking restrictions. The family of Ms. Whitwam believes there should be exceptions made for people who are housebound because of a medical condition or age. Whether or not the parking services people plan to do anything to rectify the situation is unclear. For now, Ms. Whitwam’s family has made arrangements for her meals to be brought from a local pub.