Red faces over 'speeding tractor'

May 2 2009 The Journal

A COUNCIL threatened to send in the bailiffs to collect £1,000 in unpaid parking fines from a pub landlord for his 50-year-old tractor – even though it has not moved in a year.

Bailiffs acting on behalf of Leeds City Council sent six separate letters in two days to Hughie Milburn, 61, demanding the cash or else.

Mr Milburn was told failure to pay up could mean the bailiffs breaking into his home without warning to seize property to the value of £1,000.

But Mr Milburn, who runs the Percy Arms pub at Birtley, a village in the North Tyne Valley, with his wife Gloria, did not owe the council a penny. Leeds City Council has issued the tickets over the last 12 months – even though the council admitted Mr Milburn’s ancient Massey Ferguson has never been near the city.

The council has accepted the tickets have all been issued to a silver Hyundai saloon registered in Belgium, which has the same registration plates as Mr Milburn’s 1960 red tractor.

Mr Milburn received a speeding ticket for the tractor last year from police in Manchester that claimed the tractor was doing 44mph – a speed it could not do when it was brand new. That ticket was scrapped when police had a closer look at the speed camera image, and realised it was not a tractor after all.

However, Leeds City Council took court action against Mr Milburn for non-payment of his fines and bailiffs said they would be calling to seize goods worth £1,000. The council has since realised its mistake and called off the bailiffs.

Mr Milburn said: “It was funny at first, but now it’s well beyond a joke. My wife Gloria couldn’t sleep for worry.”

A spokesman for Leeds City Council said: “We are not pursuing Mr Milburn anymore. We have realised there is an Hyundai with the registration TTY 386, which is the same as Mr Milburn’s tractor.”