Safe Speed Forums

Parking wardens told to book 100 cars an hour
By Gary Cleland
Last Updated: 2:35am BST 08/05/2007

A council has recommended that its parking attendants hand out at least 840 tickets and 36 clampings a day.

The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in London said the private firm that runs its parking enforcement, National Car Parks (NCP), should issue at least 306,000 tickets and clamp 15,000 vehicles a year.

To beat their targets attendants will need to slap tickets on about 100 cars for every hour that the restrictions are in force - more than one ticket every minute.

The revelation has prompted an investigation by the British Parking Association (BPA) and drawn criticism from the RAC Foundation. The BPA has produced a model parking enforcement contract for councils but cannot insist they use it.

It urges councils to measure the efficiency of their parking companies using indicators such as how many tickets are subject to appeal rather than how many are issued.

Edmund King, the executive director of the RAC Foundation, said yesterday that the contract should be made statutory. He said the primary aim of parking enforcement for many councils was no longer to regulate traffic but to make money.

"When parking enforcement was controlled by the police, if they saw someone parking illegally outside a newsagent they would tell them to move on," he said. "Nowadays an attendant is more likely to hide until they see them go into the shop, then hand them a ticket. There is no doubt at all that parking enforcement now is a multi-million-pound business and for some of the larger authorities, like Kensington and Chelsea, it brings in more revenue than probably anything else."

He added: "We need a statutory guideline to regulate that, rather than leaving local authorities to run their own parking regime, picking their own arbitrary figures."

Keith Banbury, the chief executive of the BPA, said: "We have previously received some concerns about the contract introduced by The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea for parking enforcement and are currently undertaking an investigation."

Tim Cowan, a spokesman for NCP, confirmed the figures in the contract with Kensington and Chelsea but said they were merely a guideline and if they were not met there would be no financial impact on the company.

He said: "If we issue less tickets next year in Kensington and Chelsea it will be because less people are parking illegally and there is no way on Earth we will get fined for that."

A spokesman for the borough told The Guardian the number of tickets and clampings were not the only performance measurements in its contract with NCP. The local authority could not be reached for comment last night.

You should always challenge any PCN. .

But if people just pay up then these people will continue inflicting their restrictions and pain on us.
Think of challenging them as being a fun way to fight back at the evil 'authorities' - playing your part to destroy the system - and then it's more a holiday.

This is what decriminalised parking enforcement is all about. The people who make up the restrictions and inflict them on us even when we don't want them are the same ones who make money from "enforcing" the restrictions.

The signs also have to be perfect and they must not be confusing.

Horse

The drivers were stung at Lakeside Car Park near Derwentwater — 84 of them for parking outside the marked bays when the car park reached capacity.

An Allerdale council spokeswoman said . . . “We are looking at improving signage for the car park.”

“We don’t allow parking on the grass because of the costly damage it causes to the kerbs.

Damage the kerbs? Don't you build roads properly up there? Wink What absolute tosh . . .

how can the wardens in Chelsea possibly achieve 100 tickets a day

Parlimentary law is just a puppet of civilians - how weird is that?

They just paint yellow lines wherever they want, and the law backs them up.

Summary of Proposals
(i)Impose No Waiting at any time restrictions at the junctions with Kingsbere Road, Harbour Hill Road and Gorse Hill Road.
(ii)Enlarge the existing coach bay
(iii)Impose no waiting 8am-10am and 2pm-4pm Mon-Fri restriction along the northwestern side of Pound Lane

Purpose of Proposals
To improve safety, to allow the School coaches to wait closer to the end of the path across the common and to get to the coach bay when there is a space available.

Objections and Support
The Governors of St Mary’s Combined School have written to object to the single yellow lines ( they support the double yellow lines at the junctions and the larger coach bay). They feel that the problems are only of a short duration and point out that the school has a particularly large catchment area. They also make reference to the difficulties that their staff have parking at the school.
Objections have been received from 10 parents of children at the school. They feel that the restrictions are not necessary to deal with a short term problem, will lead to higher speeds and displace parking elsewhere. Two of the objectors have supported the yellow lines at the junctions and the larger coach bay.
A resident of Gorse Hill Road has written to support the double yellow lines at the junctions and to urge stronger enforcement of the existing restrictions around the school, but to object to the proposed single yellow lines as they will displace the parking elsewhere.
A resident of Pound Lane has written to request that the proposals be extended to apply between Kingsbere Road and Winifred Road.

Conclusion
The proposals have been put forward to manage the congestion at school times, discourage parents from parking so that their children have to cross Pound Lane to get to their cars and allow coaches to get along the road to reach the coach stands when a space becomes free.
It appears that there is some support for the double yellow lines at the junctions and the larger coach stands, it is the single yellow lines along the north-eastern side of the road that appear to have prompted the objections.

Recommendation
Make Order as Advertised

We do have a mailing list to inform approximately 60 bodies which includes Residents' Associations, Cycling Groups and Pedestrian Groups. The Emergency Services, Bus Companies and all Ward Members are also informed.

i thought that parking on a grass area and not the public highway was a police reportable offence