There are no plans to introduce fees for residential parking permits to help meet the cost of maintaining road markings, Infrastructure Minister Ray Harmer says.

He made the pledge during a House of Keys discussion on why 15 per cent of parking fines are withdrawn upon appeal - one of the reasons offered was inadequate road markings.

Mr Harmer said the idea of introducing fees for permits was raised previously and the suggestion ’was made that the lines and signs could be maintained to good standards if residents paid an annual fee for the permit’.

The department withdrew that idea in the face of public opposition.

Pushed by David Ashford (Douglas North) to confirm there were no plans to bring that policy forward again, Mr Harmer said: ’Absolutely not. Lining, maintenance and those kinds of things, I think, are bread and butter, but it is all down to budgets.’

Earlier, Mr Harmer said the reasons why a parking ticket was successfully appealed ’could range from genuinely unforeseen circumstances such as a broken-down vehicle, through to an unmarked vehicle being used by the emergency services’.

Each appeal was dealt with on its merits, but the DoI did not currently record specific reasons for successful appeals. It was reviewing systems to see if that analysis could take place in future, he said.

Mr Ashford urged the minister to ’undertake to look and see how many of these fixed penalty notices are successfully appealed due to fading line markings on the roads’.