Parking fines laws shambles, say MPs

IC North Wales
By Peter Woodman , Daily Post
23rd June 06

PARKING policy and enforcement in Britain is "inconsistent and confused", a report from MPs said yesterday.
It is "absurd" that some parking offenders are dealt with by police and others in neighbouring areas dealt with by local councils, the report from the House of Commons Transport Committee added.
"Our present parking system is, frankly, a mess", said the committee's chairman Gwyneth Dunwoody. She added that parking enforcement contracts with incentive regimes based on the number of tickets issued were "utterly misguided".
The report said lines and signage to indicate the parking rules were often unclear and many drivers had difficulty understanding and complying with the law.
Some parking attendants were poorly trained and poorly paid, there was inadequate scrutiny of council parking operations by the Department for Transport and the Audit Commission and some councils did not make it clear how to challenge a penalty charge notice.
The committee said that decriminalised parking enforcement - where councils handle matters - must be extended throughout the country, but first the standards of enforcement must improve.
The committee added that it was astounded by the number of parking penalty charge notices which were issued but later cancelled.
In 2003, this amounted to 20% of the 7.1m notices issued, a far too high a proportion which indicated that the system was malfunctioning, MPs said.
There was too much variation in performance between local authorities. For example, some councils contest just 6% of penalty charge notices which go to appeal, while others contest 56%.
The committee said failure to comply with parking restrictions was anti-social. It also caused traffic disruption, congestion, delays to public transport, and danger for pedestrians.
MPs added that the scale and cost of illegally parked vehicles had not been estimated for the UK as a whole, but was clearly high. In London it is estimated at £270m a year in additional delays and accidents.
The committee said it was 15 years since local authorities were given the power to take control of parking enforcement from the police. In that time the regime has succeeded in raising the level of enforcement and compliance.
There was no evidence that a return to criminal parking enforcement would be beneficial.
The report said that in looking at parking policies the committee had "all too often" found "inconsistent, poor and creaking administration, lack of drive for reform, poor communications, confusion and a lack of accountability".