Examination of Witnesses (Questions 240
- 259)
WEDNESDAY 14 DECEMBER 2005
MR EDMUND
KING, MR
PAUL WATTERS,
MR CHRIS
WELSH AND
MR MIKE
BRACEY
Q240 Chairman: I think Mrs Ellman
is asking you something slightly different. How does the average
motorist know exactly what will happen there? Are they adequately
informed of what the powers and the involvement of the adjudicator
will be?
Mr King: I would say that they
are not and I would say that the system puts them off because
when you receive a parking ticket, it says if you pay within 14
days, you can have a 50% discount. If you go through to appeal
and you lose your appeal, you can no longer have that discount.
We do get a lot of people phoning us up who are actually worried
because they are on low incomes and they do not want to miss that
opportunity of the 50% discount even though they feel that they
have been judged unfairly, so simplifying those procedures, simplifying
the way that the appeals are spelled out on the back of the ticket,
simplifying what it actually says on the signs so they do not
get a ticket in the first place, I think all of that would certainly
help.
Q241 Mrs Ellman: Does that need to
be in statutory guidance?
Mr Watters: I think best practice
should be that you should be entitled to the discount if your
initial representation to the local authority fails. At the moment
some grant it, some do not, which seems very unfair to the motorist.
Mr Bracey: I think one of the
examples of this is the voluntary appeal versus the notice-to-owner
appeal, and this has already been mentioned. In actual fact, I
was at a meeting in Westminster yesterday with a colleague from
a frozen food company, it was the first time he had been to the
meeting, and he actually said, "Well, I don't like to appeal
because I have got to wait for the notice to owner", and
I said, "You haven't". What happened in Westminster
in February, without telling anybody, they reversed the information
on the back. They always used to have a voluntary appeal first
and the notice to owner as the fall-back. In February, without
telling anybody, or they did not tell us obviously and I just
happened to look at a PCN in March, they had actually reversed
it, so anybody who picks it up, as my colleague says, they look
at it, they think they have got to wait for the notice to owner
to appear before they can appeal and, on that strength, they have
then lost that £50—
Q242 Chairman: It is a bit hard,
Mr Bracey, to expect local authorities to deal with people who
do not read, is it not?
Mr Bracey: No, sorry, it is a
sequence. It comes in a sequence. If you pick any document up,
it does not say, "You do this first", or you do it second,
it is just listed first and second and, therefore, the ordinary
motorist and even in our industry, if they look at it, they imagine
they have got to wait for the NTO to come, the notice to owner,
which comes after 28 days normally when they have not paid. It
is just the way it is designed and I think again, as my colleague
has said, we want standard information on the back which is very,
very clear.
Q243 Clive Efford: Just following
on from some of those questions, Mr Bracey and Mr King, you have
both held up Westminster as being one of the worst examples, but
an example of one authority that has improved its act. Are you
confident that the statutory guidance or any other measures that
are being put in place will prevent another authority, or even
Westminster slipping back, becoming another Westminster?
Mr King: I am not confident as
it currently stands and I think that is why the guidance really
needs to be tightened up. A lot of it is down to the actual contracts
and when the local authority goes to the parking manager and says,
"How much revenue do you expect you will get this year from
your tickets?", they do various assessments. Even if they
are not direct targets, they are seen as estimates and people
work towards those numbers and that somehow puts pressure on the
system to produce more tickets than a fairer system would, so
yes, it could happen elsewhere if the whole guidance is not tightened
up.
Mr Bracey: There is a borough
that is actually doing that and that is Camden. Camden have increased
quite considerably over the last 18 months, as far as my members
are concerned. In fact they are up by 78% in 17 months. They are
now becoming leading second contender for the worst borough.
Q244 Clive Efford: You may want to
comment on this, but I take it from your answer just then, Mr
King, that you believe this, that you suspect or you know that
local authorities are driven by the need to raise revenue because
of figures that they put in their budgets in the financial year.
Mr King: There is no doubt that
that has been an influence. I have been in meetings with local
authorities and parking contractors after London Congestion Charging
came into place and there was a fear voiced that Congestion Charging
would reduce the number of cars coming into London and, hence,
would reduce the revenue. That was a fear raised, so that indicated—
Q245 Chairman: By the contractor
or by the local authority?
Mr King: Well, they seem to be
pretty close together in their thinking on that.
Q246 Chairman: Well, it is important
to know, Mr King.
Mr King: But it was a discussion
of the two. Then other local authorities have had ticket targets
at certain times and, depending on how many tickets you give out,
you can win a flat-screen TV, et cetera, and we felt that those
kind of incentive schemes led to abuse and the fact that an attendant
would be waiting in a doorway, putting a ticket on a car the minute
before because he needed to fulfil his quota. One of the problems
is motivating parking attendants and one of the problems is that
I think they are pretty poorly paid, so if the levels of pay and
training were increased, you would not need such schemes. Now,
most local authorities since these schemes have been exposed,
and there is another one with Argos points or something, though
I do not think that is quite as popular, but they are saying that
they are discontinuing these.
Mr Watters: I was just going to
pick up on the point you made about the guidance, that authorities
do not toe the line. There is always the possibility of special
parking area status being withdrawn from an authority if it does
not toe the line. Looking to the Traffic Management Act, which
can require a local authority to have a traffic director imposed,
there could be a reason why a special parking area could have
its status withdrawn if it failed to perform, performed very badly
or illegally.
Q247 Chairman: Have you any evidence
of that?
Mr Watters: I think there is one
authority which has been challenged for not having its special
parking area properly and legally in place at the moment.
Q248 Chairman: And you could point
us towards which one?
Mr Watters: I think so.
Q249 Clive Efford: Just following
up on a question we asked last week, when you were suggesting
that authorities had incentive schemes, you were not including
Westminster in that?
Mr King: Westminster, when parking
was first decriminalised, did have ticket targets, but that is
going back ten years and that was proved. They were given targets
and there was an agreement with their contractor. They also at
various stages have had incentive schemes, but apparently they
do not have them now.
Q250 Clive Efford: Mr Watters, you
mentioned CCTV enforcement. What kind of parking offences is CCTV
used for?
Mr Watters: It seems to be actually
catching people who are stopping to read a map at the moment which
is a little bit unfortunate at times because I think that is a
very safe thing to do perhaps, and you are legally allowed to
stop to pick up and set down of course if there is no loading
restriction. CCTV is quite a worry because the first a driver
hears of it is the notice to owner through the letterbox, as was
mentioned earlier, so you have no chance to recall the event perhaps
as easily as going back to the car and having the ticket on the
car. CCTV is a worry because it is very remote. Sometimes there
are no signs advising you that you are, if you stop very briefly,
at risk and I think it needs to be handled very carefully with
the code of practice perhaps in the guidance.
Q251 Clive Efford: Handled carefully,
but not that there should be no circumstances where CCTV—
Mr Watters: No, but I think it
needs perhaps to be addressed very, very carefully.
Q252 Clive Efford: I will start with
Mr King, but other people may want to comment on this. Do the
current requirements for parking capacity need revising?
Mr King: I think there is a problem
with capacity when you look longer-term. I think we projected
that by 2030, there could be 12 million more cars, nine million
needing to park off-street and three million on-street. The planning
guidance here, PPG3, actually we believe goes against a coherent
parking policy. It indicates that there should be a maximum of
one and a half car parking spaces per new dwelling, whereas the
reality is that you are going to get one-, two- and three-car
families whether there are restrictions or not and it is better
to get those vehicles off-street where they are less of a danger
in safety terms to pedestrians.
Q253 Chairman: Mr King, are you suggesting
to this Committee that people should have space for parking three
cars at every house?
Mr King: I am talking about new
developments. Rather than some feint hope—
Q254 Chairman: Yes, but I just want
to be clear. You are saying three cars per house?
Mr King: Not every house, but
I think the restriction to one and a half spaces is unrealistic
and what it leads—
Q255 Chairman: Would it not be simpler
just to have car parks and no houses!
Mr King: I think people need somewhere
to live!
Mr Martlew: They could live in their
cars!
Q256 Clive Efford: But PPG3 does
refer to the relationship with public transport links as well.
It is not just as simple as 1.5—
Mr King: No, but I think, as someone
who uses public transport every day, I use the train every day
and my season ticket costs me a lot of money, but I still have
a car and I use it for other purposes, so the fact that there
is public transport there does not mean that someone should not
be allowed to own a car and park it safely. Obviously there are
problems with historic housing areas, Victorian terraces, because
there is limited capacity and there are problems with that, but
the planning system is not helping.
Q257 Clive Efford: Does central London
need more kerbside spaces?
Mr King: It needs more spaces
for motorcycles in central London because they cause much less
congestion and we are very concerned that if you do not get to
central London before about 7.15 in the morning, there are no
spaces. There is an anomaly in Westminster. At Waterloo Place
next to the Institute of Directors, there is a massive car parking
area, empty of cars, yet each morning the motorcycle bays are
absolutely full. We have made representations on numerous occasions
to open up some of those bays to motorcycles and I am afraid nothing
has happened
Mr Welsh: We have got a very similar
problem with the freight industry. What we have found is that,
as new development has taken place, a lot of loading and unloading
bays have been with withdrawn which has meant of course that our
members have picked up more parking fines as a result of that.
I said it earlier, but I will repeat it, and that is that what
there needs to be is a review, an ongoing review, of the need
for loading and unloading provision so that we can make access
as appropriate.
Q258 Mr Goodwill: There have been
a number of cases around the country where appeals have thrown
up the fact that local authorities have been acting illegally.
In some cases the whole scheme has been illegal for legal reasons
and there is one in my constituency of a case like that, but there
are other cases in other places, like Sunderland, where bays are
incorrectly marked, lines are incorrect and signs are wrong. How
widespread a problem is this and how aware are motorists of the
way that they can challenge in this way?
Mr Watters: I think there are
probably numerous examples where traffic orders do not match the
regulations signed on the ground, but it is very hard to tease
it out. I think when decriminalised parking was rolled out, the
orders were supposed to have been inspected and the signs and
markings checked, and I am sure that it takes some astute motorists
to go and find these places because no one else is doing this,
perhaps the adjudicators are finding some. I am concerned that
things do not match and I think the public want to feel that it
is completely transparent. I do not think the public should be
the ones to find out that things do not match.
Q259 Mr Goodwill: Do you feel that
in these cases the local authorities have an obligation to issue
refunds to people who have been illegally fined in these cases,
not just the people who have come forward, but actually to go
back to those cases and identify people who have been illegally
charged?
Mr Watters: To be completely transparent,
they should. I think that is why we call for compensation or some
sort of costs awarded when the motorist finds that it is wrong.
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