Examination of Witnesses (Questions 260
- 277)
WEDNESDAY 14 DECEMBER 2005
MR EDMUND
KING, MR
PAUL WATTERS,
MR CHRIS
WELSH AND
MR MIKE
BRACEY
Q260 Mr Goodwill: I just have a question
for the freight people and the breweries. There have been one
or two cases in the media where Tesco's have been taking over
convenience stores and been delivering with very large vehicles.
Do you think the breweries and the people who deliver have a part
to play in this by having suitable vehicles to deliver into congested
areas and is this a problem that is getting worse?
Mr Bracey: As far as we are concerned,
we do have different types of vehicles, different sizes obviously
to try and meet some of these problems, but again when you are
trying to deliver three or five tonnes of beer to one pub, you
do need basically the 17-tonne dray. Just to touch on appeals,
my largest depot that picks up tickets is Tradeteam in Enfield
and they pick up over 300 a month. They decided last year to put
somebody in full-time, appealing against every ticket. Now, this
is not good practice with every single ticket. The interesting
fact that comes out of this is that five boroughs in London issue
88% of their tickets, and I could tell you who they are, but you
know who they are anyway, and the interesting point is that out
of 3,065 PCNs appealed against, 1,039 were upheld which is 37.2%
and it saved them over £70,000. I think it is not a good
case because we do not want this, but what it highlights is how
many bad tickets are really being issued.
Chairman: We will come to that.
Q261 Mr Martlew: Before I get to
the specifics, I am a bit confused by the evidence that we have
received. It seems that you all want annual reports, you all want
compensation paid, you do not think they pay the people who issue
the parking tickets enough, the back-office people are too junior,
but how do you expect this to be paid for? Is this to come from
putting up the fines or should it come out of council tax?
Mr King: No, I think there is
enough money in parking to actually come from the fines. If you
look at the figures, particularly for city boroughs, they make
immense profits out of parking, so—
Q262 Mr Martlew: That is a general
sweeping statement though. Have you got the evidence for that?
Mr King: Well, certainly from
Westminster, Camden, areas like that.
Q263 Mr Martlew: Some of us do live
outside of London.
Mr King: Yes, and the bigger metropolitan
areas, Manchester, Newcastle, whatever. If it is an efficient
system, it need not cost a lot of money, so I think it could be
done quite easily.
Mr Watters: The benefits go wider.
There are also safety and traffic reasons for doing this and if
parking in towns is more logical and more easy, people will use
those towns, so there is an economic case to argue for having
rules that are reasonably enforced and that places are welcoming,
so it should pay for itself arguably.
Mr Welsh: Prior to decriminalisation,
we did not have a problem. Industry was able to make deliveries
to retail premises—
Q264 Chairman: Yes, but was that
because it was not properly enforced?
Mr Welsh: Sorry?
Q265 Chairman: Was it because the
level of enforcement was not adequate?
Mr Welsh: No, I do not think so.
Again we have supported the level of enforcement. Where there
is clear breach of loading provision or clear breach of the parking
rules, then fine, they should be dealt with, but, as I said, it
is a complex problem. A lot of loading and unloading bays have
been taken out.
Q266 Mr Martlew: We are talking about
parking charges and parking fines. Do you really think that local
authorities should have discretion on this or should there be
a standard throughout the country, especially on parking fines?
Mr Watters: I think the penalties
should be at a reasonably set level, not by the local authority,
but by national government probably. We have always taken issue
with London having different fees from outside of London in some
respects for clamping and towing away in particular, but in terms
of how much they charge for the space, that is market forces really,
local areas.
Q267 Chairman: Are you asking for
an independent audit of traffic regulation orders, signs and lines?
Mr Watters: I think that is called
for. I think there is too much doubt about how many do stack up.
Q268 Graham Stringer: Just on that
point, why should there be a national standard of fines? Why,
if there is a bigger problem in Manchester than Scarborough, should
Manchester not say, "We want to fine you ten times as much
for breaking the rules"? Why should we have this national
standard?
Mr Watters: Because the punishment
should probably fit the crime and if you overstay at a meter that
you have paid a couple of pounds at for a couple of minutes, it
would seem disproportionate to charge £100.
Q269 Graham Stringer: That is not
the question I am asking you. I am asking why the punishment,
the fine, should be the same in Scarborough as it is in Manchester
so that if you have overstayed by an hour in Scarborough, why
should the local authority not say, "We haven't got too bad
a problem here in the winter, it is only a £20 fine",
and in Manchester where parking in the wrong place could bring
the city centre to a halt, you could be fined potentially £300?
Mr Watters: I think because some
of the local authorities have lost public confidence. There will
be a feeling that there was a revenue-collection exercise going
on, so if the penalties were set, say, by government, people would
feel that it was less of the local authority trying to make a
profit. I am not saying they should park illegally, but—
Q270 Graham Stringer: But why should
Birmingham and Manchester not be able to say, "We've got
a problem here. We want to put a large disincentive in to breaking
the regulations. We are looking after our city centre/town centre"?
Why should they not be allowed to have bigger fines?
Mr King: I think it depends very
much on the actual offence and I think if the offence is parking
on a double-yellow line, on a pedestrian crossing or outside a
school, causing an obstruction, I think that it is absolutely
just to have higher fines and to be set accordingly.
Q271 Graham Stringer: And to be set
locally?
Mr King: Yes, but if the offence
is overstaying on a meter by five minutes, then I think that would
be very unfair. However good your watch is, and I have an expensive
watch, self-winding, but it loses time and every so often I have
to look at Big Ben and adjust my watch, so if I overstay by five
minutes, I think it would be vastly unfair if I was hit with a
£200 fine.
Graham Stringer: It would be cheaper
to buy a less expensive watch!
Q272 Chairman: They do funny things
in the RAC!
Mr Welsh: From the freight industry
point of view, I think the most important thing for us is to have
a standardised and consistent approach to the rules right across
the country and that is why we are asking for the guidance. I
think we accept, as the motoring organisations do, that there
should be a variable fine according to the severity of the problem
and if we can get that, get a uniform system across the country
and, for example, if we had just the standard uniform description
or definition of loading and unloading right across the country,
that would be a great help because we have not got that at the
moment and that is why—
Q273 Chairman: I am going to stop
you there because I want to ask you very briefly, before we finish,
what about pavement parking?
Mr Watters: It is a very difficult
area because it is something that applies in parts and not other
parts, so if you park on the pavement in one place, you get a
ticket and if you park in another, you do not, and you do not
know anything about it often because it is not a signed restriction.
Q274 Chairman: So you are saying
that the clarification of the signs would deal with that? Is that
what you are saying?
Mr Watters: Yes.
Q275 Chairman: People would then
be quite clear where they could and could not park and they would,
therefore, be entirely responsible if they ignored that?
Mr Watters: Yes, the legislation
only applies to London and it does not apply elsewhere.
Q276 Chairman: If parking attendants
were given more discretion to issue and cancel penalty charge
notices, would that be a good idea?
Mr King: Yes, I think more flexibility.
The kind of place where that could help is where someone buys
a ticket from the pay-and-display and you have got a residents'
parking zone right next to a pay-and-display, so people have legitimately
bought the ticket, but they park in the wrong space because it
is not well signed, but they have bought the ticket, so in those
cases I think there should be more discretion.
Chairman: So clarification, uniformity
of approach, clarity of fining with a degree of flexibility for
local authorities, special consideration for breweries or, alternatively,
encouraging people not to drink beer, and no, it is not an official
Labour Party policy!
Graham Stringer: Quite the reverse!
Q277 Chairman: And, as far as you
are concerned, a degree of flexibility in the application of fines?
Is that right?
Mr Watters: Yes.
Chairman: Thank you very much, gentlemen.
You have been very informative.
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