Sunday, June 25

Parking 'U' Turn



Last week there was recognition in the British media that local authorities are treating parking enforcement as a huge money-making excerise.
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A Parlimentry Transport Select Committee is to recomend a single national system (as indeed there was upuntil recent years) governing trafic wardens and parking attendents - the latter being a wonderfully Orwellian title for private enterprise partnership fixpenalty fine issuers.
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The committee has heard evidence that up to a fifth of tickets are cancelled after complaints from motorists. Paul Watters, head of transport policy for the AA Motoring Trust correctly commented to BBC radio 4: '' local authorities were often driven by profit, where parking was concerned, adding, ''parking control appeared to have lost its way under the deregulated regime. ''
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BBC Transport Correspondent Tom Symonds added to the comments and said: parking had become "a seriously controversial local issue in many parts of the country" since the gradual transfer of powers to issue tickets from the police to councils.
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MPs are expected to ask for a national system of standards for privatised parking enforcement, with more councils being able to use their discretion when issuing tickets rather than rigidly sticking to the rules.
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An example of the obsessive attitude of local authorities to parking was the case of pensioner Mrs Shirley Hatcher from Southampton who quite correctly parked her car last week in North Road Southampton in a spot where there were no parking restrictions in place.
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However by the time Mrs Hatcher returned from the hairdressers contractors, on behalf of Southampton City council, had painted yellow lines on the road around the car and with lightning speed a parking attendent stuck a fixed penalty notice to the car's windscreen.
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Quite rightly Mrs Hatcher is raising cane with the council who have since said how sorry they are. Perhaps they are sorry not to have also afixed a wheel clamp to the dear lady's car !
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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Just the ticket