Monday 14 January 2013

The One Show - Carstoppers car park at Howarth



BBC One Show's Dan Donnelly confronts a Carstoppers parking attendant in Yorkshire, who drivers claim is unfairly targeting them.

Watch more videos on NMAGTV

Friday 11 January 2013

Folkestone parking officer on £150k theft charges

Court

A MAN accused of stealing money from the parking meters he was responsible for repairing will face trial at crown court.
Matthew Donovan, a former technical officer at Shepway District Council, is accused of stealing more than £150,000 from the machines in council-owned car parks in Folkestone, Hythe and Romney Marsh, between January 2009 and March 2012.

Read the full article here

Barry’s parking ticket bid caught on camera


A PARKING campaigner was seen on a TV documentary deliberately getting a parking ticket in Bury.
Parking Mad aired on BBC 1 on Tuesday night and featured Barry Moss, a pensioner from Westhoughton, who had waged an unsuccessful High Court case against Bolton Council’s auditors KPMG in 2010.

Read the full article here

Soldier is hit by hotel car park drop-off fine


A SOLDIER was shocked to be handed a £100 parking fine despite only being on a hotel car park for a matter of seconds.
Staff sergeant Rick Boys, of St John’s, Worcester, had driven into the Fownes Hotel car park on City Walls Road, Worcester, to drop off his wife Karen for a training day and returned later to pick her up.

Read the full article here

Bournemouth drivers "not legally required" to display parking ticket

THEY installed the parking meters, hired the traffic wardens and started collecting the cash.

But it appears Bournemouth council forgot one little thing in its haste to start making money from on-street parking – making it a legal requirement for motorists to display a ticket.

Read the full article here

Exeter parking charges could rise as income hits £3.1m

Parking charges could go up in Exeter under plans put forward by the Devon council that makes the most money from parking.

Exeter City Council said it planned to raise charges in some car parks in a bid to make the system "simpler"



Read the full article here

Car clamper ordered to pay back £3 million - or face ten years in jail

Fraudster Steven Ryan, who ran  Birmingham firm conning motorists with faulty parking meter, given six months to find cash


A fraudster who ran a notorious Birmingham car clamping company has been ordered to pay back almost £3million – or face ten years in jail.
Steven Ryan, 56, was given six months to find the money after a judge ruled he had benefited by £2,837,349 from his business, Car Clamping Securities.

Read the full article here

Councils rake in record profits from parking


Councils in England have raked in record profits from parking with one town hall boosting its income by more than 50 per cent in a year, official figures have shown.

Local authorities, who have seen their profit from parking increase 14.9 per cent in a year to £411 million, have admitted they are using the cash to plug gaps in their spending because of budget cuts.

The Local Government Association admitted, for the first time, that it has been able to use the cash from parking to make good losses such as the £442 million in their highways budget.

Read the full article here

Wednesday 9 January 2013

BBC - Parking Mad




Observational documentary about people who fight their parking tickets.

In 2012, more parking tickets are issued in the UK than ever before and new technologies to catch motorists continue to be deployed across the country. This film follows the stories of both the council parking enforcement departments who issue tickets - and the motorists who have decided to fight back against the system.

Aside from the stories of the ordinary motorists fighting their individual tickets, the film also follows 'parking campaigners', dedicated amateurs who insist that the councils are unjustly punishing motorists and using parking as a way to raise revenues. These individuals are passionate about pointing out the injustices of the system, battling the councils and saving other motorists from receiving 'unjust tickets'. Their methods are extremely varied. Some get tickets deliberately to prove their point, others take their parking tickets to the High Court, whilst one group have even formed a masked motorcycle gang to take their fight to the streets.

The film also hears from the other side of the issue - the Traffic Penalty Tribunal, the legally-binding national body that has the final say on whether motorists must pay their parking tickets or not.

Watch more videos on NMAGTV here

EU demands access to details of all UK drivers: 'Orwellian' move to hand out personal information to foreign police forces


Brussels is demanding that 26 police forces across the EU should have access to the personal details of every motorist in Britain.

The Government is being threatened with fines totalling millions of pounds unless it obeys the ‘Orwellian’ edict.

Foreign police also want open access to the UK’s national DNA database and fingerprint records so they can check them against crime scenes and camera footage.



Read the full article here

Councils accused of treating drivers like cash cows after parking fee profits soar by 15% in a year


Councils have been accused of treating drivers as 'cash cows' after profits on parking charges soared by 15 per cent in a year 

while spending on road maintenance dropped.
Income from pay and display tickets, parking permits and fines rose by £50million to £411million in the year to the end of March 2012, figures yesterday showed.

For some local authorities the increase was far higher than the national average of 15 per cent.


Read the full article here


Grandmother fined £70 for going to car park twice


Grandmother Heather Taw was given a £70 parking charge for using a supermarket in the morning – and then dropping her sister off there in the evening.
The 62-year-old visited Aldi on West Street, Fareham, on Thursday, December 17.
Mrs Taw, a care home chef, had popped in to the supermarket to go shopping in the morning and left around half an hour later.

read the full article here

Rail firms accused of 'ripping off' passengers by increasing car parking charges at stations

The Transport Salaried Staffs' Association said charges for parking at railway stations had also gone up by more than the rate of inflation in many parts of the country.


Rail firms have been accused of “ripping off” passengers by increasing car parking charges at stations just days after train fares rose by an inflation-busting average of 4.2%.

The Transport Salaried Staffs' Association (TSSA) said charges for parking at railway stations had also gone up by more than the rate of inflation in many parts of the country.

Read the full article here

Tuesday 8 January 2013

Traffic policing or highway robbery? Car users hit back


With their plastic masks, high-visibility jackets and flags streaming from their motorbikes, they look like a cross between superheroes and vigilantes.

The gang, known as the No To Mob, roam through city centres hunting for closed-circuit television enforcement vehicles, or “spy cars”, which they trail to warn motorists of the risk of an impending fine. 

Read the full article here

Parking ticket crusader faces selling his home after losing £40,000 legal fight against council over bays and signs


A grandfather could be forced to sell his home to pay £40,000 in legal costs after losing a High Court battle over parking tickets.

Barry Moss launched a one-man crusade against his local council and successfully appealed against dozens of tickets for friends, family – and even strangers.

The retired roofer argued that Bolton Council’s parking bays and signage did not comply with Department for Transport regulations. But when he took the council’s auditors, KPMG, to the High Court to claim some of the authority’s income had therefore been obtained illegally, he lost the case.

Read the full article here


‘Parking mad’ Barry set to be star on TV


A PENSIONER who once described himself as a “thorn in the side” of Bolton Council’s parking department is set to star in a BBC documentary.
Parking Mad airs on BBC 1 tomorrow and features the story of Barry Moss, from Westhoughton.
He waged an unsuccessful High Court case against Bolton Council’s auditors KPMG in 2010, after he claimed the authority had gained money from issuing “unlawful” tickets.

Read the full article here

‘Cash cow’ parking charges made £26million for Islington Council

Town hall bosses have been accused of treating motorists as “cash cows” after Islington raked in £26million in parking charges – more than double its larger neighbour Hackney.

Islington Council ranked sixth highest out of the country’s 371 authorities in revenue from parking tickets, permits and pay-and-display charges in the financial year 2011 to 2012 – despite being the second smallest borough in London.


Read the full article here

Westminster council blasted for cashing in on parking fines


Westminster council raked in five times more in parking charges and fines per household than any other London borough, Labour claimed today.

The Tory council made £637.31 per household, followed by Kensington & Chelsea — also Conservative — on £485.90, according to figures about council revenues from on- and off-street parking and fines.


Read the full article here

Birmingham Jewellery Quarter parking sensors piloted

A pilot street parking scheme has been launched in Birmingham aimed at helping motorists find available spaces in part of the city.

Some 200 sensors have been embedded in selected roads in the Jewellery Quarter area that are designed to detect the presence of a parked vehicle.

Read the full article here

Friday 4 January 2013

Parking charges top £1bn as council plug budgets


Motorists are paying more than £1 billion a year for parking as councils search for new ways to earn money in the wake of government cuts, it emerged today.

Researchers found that Conservative-run councils rake in far more from parking charges than town halls under Labour.
According to research published by the opposition, households in London are spending more than £600 a year on residents' permits, meters and fines.
Eric Pickles, the Communities Secretary, has vowed to expose what he calls a ''great council cash-cow cover-up'' by forcing authorities to publish parking revenue.

Read the full article here

Porsche driver who has spent £10,000 waging one-man war against parking fines by contesting scores of tickets is finally forced to pay up


A Porsche driver who has avoided paying a staggering 35 parking fines over the last two years has been slapped with an £800 penalty after failing to buy a 60p parking ticket.

Jason MacLeod, 34, has avoided £2,000 of fines by appealing every parking ticket he has been issued with since 2010, at a cost of £10,000.

The software developer says he disagrees with the 'principle' of the fines, claiming they are 'disproportionate.' 

Instead of just 'rolling over' like most drivers, he has researched legal technicalities, written extensive letters of explanation and contested his fines at tribunals.
He has even brawled on the floor with a burly parking boss he confronted over his car being clamped.

Read the full article here


Arundel parking plan is driven out of town


“Ludicrous” plans to introduce a residents’ parking scheme in Arundel look set to be abandoned by West Sussex County Council later this month.
Following the overwhelming results of a public consultation on the proposals for on-street parking, which saw around 75 per cent of people oppose the changes, county council officers have recommended that the plans be scrapped.

Read the full article here

Spot the sign for pay and display: Picture that helped driver win David and Goliath legal battle with council over a £1 parking charge


A motorist has won a six-month legal battle after he was fined over a £1 parking fee.

John Samuels, 56, parked by a Tesco Metro store but was unaware he was liable to pay the £1 charge because the sign was obscured by a pillar.

After returning to his vehicle to find a £50 penalty notice, he scoured the car park and eventually saw a blue sign on a wall at ground level, reading: ‘This is a pay and display car park.’

Read the full article here


Penny inchers: Traffic wardens given tape measures to check how far cars are parked from kerb

Disgruntled motorists have hit out as traffic wardens are dishing out £70 fines for those more than 19 inches away


Traffic wardens are going to new lengths to nab drivers, by using tape measures to see how far from the kerb they are parked.
And they are dishing out £70 fines for those more than 19 inches away.

Read the full article here

Couple with disabled boy slapped with £70 parking ticket as they carried him to their car outside their home


Parents who parked outside their home as they carried their seriously disabled boy to their car were shocked to see they had been given a ticket.

Karl Wade, 37, briefly left his Nissan Note people carrier in front of his house as he and his partner Rebecca Harbourne, 28, strapped splints to the legs of four-year-old Devon, who has cerebral palsy and cannot walk.

Read the full article here


Private parking companies suspended for misleading motorists


More than a fifth of private parking enforcement companies have been suspended as fears grow over powers to allow them to dish out fines of up to £100.

The suspensions, by the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency, have taken place within weeks of the Government banning clamping on private land.
Motoring organisations fear at least another 500,000 private tickets will be issued on top of the current two million fines already handed out a year by enforcement companies, as they seek to fill in the void created by the clamping ban.

Read the full article here

£7k overpaid by motorists into North Lincolnshire parking meters


MOTORISTS at ticket machines handed the taxpayers in North Lincolnshire a £7,000-plus windfall last year because they had no change, it has been revealed.
The Scunthorpe Telegraph has learned that over-payments made in council-owned pay and display machines in car parks during 2011-12 amounted to £7,148.07.

Read the full article here