Select Committee on Committee on the London Local Authorities and Transport for London Bill Minutes of Evidence


Sections 60-79

3 NOVEMBER 2005

 60. Why?

(Mr Bell) The reason is that we consider that the sign in Photograph 27, which I said has to be on every street and each side of every side street and I estimate there are well over 100,000 of these in London. We believe that these are unnecessary. These bans were first introduced in the 1970s. They have now been in place for over 30 years. They relate to only a specific section of the motoring population, that is drivers of large vehicles, and we believe that those drivers are now very much aware of the overnight parking ban that is in place. As I said, there are something like 100,000 of these signs, if you look closely on Page 27 at the sign, it looks fine, but you will in fact see the bolts holding on to the lamp column are rusting and fairly soon that sign will fall off the lamp column and indeed if you go to the next page 27 A, I will not say that is a typical sign but signs like that do exist and clearly they are a nuisance. We regard all of these signs first as unnecessary and second as an environmental nuisance and environmentally unnecessary and there is also a maintenance element or costs involved in maintaining these signs which those costs are a burden on the local authorities.

 61. Is this a parallel with other bans that do not require every street to have a sign?

(Mr Bell) There is one very relevant ban which is a ban on parking on the footways. Again it is a London-wide ban and that was introduced under a Greater London Powers Act back in, I think, 1974. That prevents or makes it an offence or known contravention to park on the footway unless there is an exempted area. This is a London-wide ban, it is not signed in any way.

 62. CHAIRMAN: Do I recall that the Government objected to this on the grounds that it would not be the same as other parts of the Home Counties or is that something different?

 63. MR CLARKSON: It is arcane, as I recall. The Government does not believe it is reasonable to rely solely on zone entry signs to inform HGV drivers of parking restrictions which is why the requirement for repeater signs are specified in the first place nor should there be any special parking arrangements that contradict national signing requirements. Mr Bell, respond.

(Mr Bell) As we have just discussed, there is a London-wide ban that does not rely on signing, but the Department for Transport also makes special arrangements elsewhere and if I can give you two examples where schemes are in place which do not conform to national signing requirements. One is around Oxford Football Ground where there is in effect a control parking zone and if you go there on a match day you are not allowed to park in a defined area. This has entry signs, but it does not have the ordinary parking place signs that you would have on the street, so that is an area where they have given special authorisation for that to take place and just another example if you go to Norwich, you will find that the parking places on the street in Norwich city centre do not have all of the white markings that conventionally would apply and do exist in the whole of London. That is another example where the Department has given special authorisation for a departure from the national requirements.

 64. What does English Heritage say about street paraphernalia?

(Mr Bell) English Heritage is very much in favour of reducing street furniture. Perhaps I may quote from something called Streets for All. The paragraph is headed "Traffic Signs". It says, "Clutter can be reduced by eliminating unnecessary signs, equipment, posts and columns." They have a campaign at the moment which I think is called ---

 65. Save our Streets, is it?

(Mr Bell) That is right. Perhaps I may give you another quote from a recent press release of 10 October 2005, which says: "Many towns and villages have had their local distinctiveness eroded by an array of ugly and obtrusive traffic signs, posts and bollards that clutter our streets." English Heritage is very much in favour of reducing signage or combining signs where possible, so having one instead of two or three. It is also a campaign that is supported by CPRE, which is the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England, and CABE.

 66. That is the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment.

(Mr Bell) Yes.

 67. MR CLARKSON: I think that is all we need to go into unless the Committee have any questions on this aspect.

 68. CHAIRMAN: So the national requirement would remain that every town in Kent or Hertfordshire would still have to have the equivalent of this little yellow thing on every street where they placed a street ban, is that correct?

(Mr Bell) That would be the case. To be honest, I have no idea how many towns or cities outside London have a ban like this. In a way what we are trying to do in London is lead the way and show that things can be done in a different way and hopefully for very supportable reasons.

 69. CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much indeed.

 70. MR CLARKSON: Thank you, Mr Bell.

The witness withdrew

MR PATRICK TROY, sworn

Examined by MR CLARKSON

 71. MR CLARKSON: My last witness is Mr Troy who will speak to Part 6 which is objected to by the Government on the basis that it is already covered or will be covered. I will introduce Mr Troy. You are Head of Traffic Enforcement for Transport for London and this submission is on behalf of the Enforcement Task Force, which is a partnership working group composed of the Association of London Government, Transport for London, the Metropolitan Police Service and other enforcement agencies in London. Let us do exactly as other witnesses have, please, let us go to Clause 25 through to 33 and explain what it is the Bill is seeking to do, Mr Troy.

(Mr Troy) Certainly. The heading of this part is "Non-Payment of Penalty Charges". We have come to use the term "persistent evaders" to define this particular problem and what we mean by a persistent evader is somebody who regularly and frequently finds a way round the existing legislation which is designed to ensure that when penalty charge notices are issued they are paid by the keeper of the vehicle. The primary purpose, as I think you have already heard, of decriminalised enforcement in this case is to achieve an improvement in compliance with traffic regulations and by so doing we can see the benefits certainly in London of reduced congestion and improved road safety, improved bus priority and so on. What we have found over several years now of operating the legislation is that there is an obstacle to that objective and that is people who attempt to find a way around the system, usually by them not registering their vehicles properly, not giving the correct address or registering their vehicles perhaps falsely.

 72. Is that a cloning exercise that is done as well?

(Mr Troy) There are attempts at cloning or ringing vehicles.

 73. Can you just say in a couple of sentences what the new clause actually does to deal with that?

(Mr Troy) At the present time the legislation allows authorities to remove a vehicle, if it is a known persistent evader, to a pound.

 74. In summary, a persistent evader has huge outstanding fines.

(Mr Troy) That is right, yes. In a pilot that we did last year we found that any particular persistent evader had an average of 12 penalty charge notices outstanding, but that ranged from three up to several hundred. The purpose of the legislation is to empower the London authorities and Transport for London to remove any vehicle that is known to be a persistent evader whether it is parked lawfully or unlawfully - the word "stationary" is used in the legislation - and impound or immobilise that vehicle in order to recover the outstanding penalty charge notices on those vehicles.

 75. Does that car have to be illegally or legally parked when it is picked up under current legislation?

(Mr Troy) Under current legislation it has to be illegally parked.

 76. So if I have a huge number of outstanding notices and currently park it legally, is there any way I can be brought to book?

(Mr Troy) No, there is no way you can be brought to book in the sense that your vehicle is not registered correctly. If your vehicle is registered correctly then there is a very clear process which works very effectively, but if your vehicle is not registered correctly - and these are the people we are talking about - then there is no way of recovering those penalty charges.

 77. What do the clauses do?

(Mr Troy) The clauses would enable the London authorities and Transport for London to remove a lawfully parked vehicle or immobilise that vehicle, or indeed both, and not to return the vehicle to its keeper until all the outstanding penalty charge notices are paid.

 78. MR AUSTIN: What is the definition of persistent?

(Mr Troy) The definition we have put into the clause is any vehicle which has more than three outstanding penalty charge notices. We have defined outstanding very carefully because what we do not want to do is regard any keeper as a persistent evader if they are in the process of making a representation or an appeal against the penalty charge notice. So they only become a persistent evader if they have received their fourth penalty charge notice and have gone beyond the point where they could have made an appeal.

 79. What would happen if somebody bought a vehicle in good faith and did not realise there were outstanding charges, is there a safeguard?

(Mr Troy) Yes, there are a number of safeguards that we have built in to this because that is a possibility. Firstly, there would be two checks done by authorised officers who identify a persistent offender. We are talking there about a parking attendant on the street who finds a vehicle that he knows is on the persistent evader database. He will conduct a DVLA check to ensure that the vehicle is still owned by that person. You may say if it is not registered correctly we might not know who the keeper is. It is still in the same vehicle keeper status so we know it has not changed hands in the recent past. The attending removal or clamping vehicle will conduct the same check to ensure that those two checks have been done. The third thing is that in the unlikely event that a vehicle is removed to a pound or clamped and someone happens to have purchased that vehicle the day before, we have built into the clause the provision of a bond or surety so that the attending keeper can recover their vehicle, pay a bond and the issue of keepership can be sorted out within a very short period of time after that. We are conscious that this might happen in the middle of the night and we need to ensure that there is provision for an innocent party.


 
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