Ham and High 24 04 2008 Parking fines just won't stand

Camden - A message to you Rudy Bright

10,000 parking fines 'are invalid because of rule changes'

Evening Standard - 10,000 parking fines 'are invalid because of rule changes'

David Williams, Motoring Editor
22.04.08

Thousands of parking tickets should be scrapped because they were issued under the "wrong" regulations, campaigners said today.

About 10,000 fines were handed out in Camden after new rules came into effect on 31 March. On that day, parking attendants became "civil enforcement officers" and councils had to pass new Traffic Management Orders to make their work legal, according to campaign group ParkingAppeals. Instead, it claims, Camden continued to issue penalties under the old legislation.

The group's founder, Neil Herron, says the council issued faulty tickets for 18 days for parking meter and pay and display "offences" - and that unenforceable tickets are still being issued for yellow line offences. He is threatening to take Camden to court unless it overturns the fines.

A spokesman for Camden council said: "We are confident we have acted lawfully. The power to make Traffic Management Orders is conferred by the Road Traffic Regulations Act 1984. Therefore the changes brought about by the Traffic Management Act 2004, which deal with the enforcement of parking contraventions, do not affect the validity of our existing Traffic Management Orders."

It always hurts

If you have had a Penalty Charge Notice in Camden then you will be pleased to know that the majority of their restrictions are unenforceable.

If you had a ticket in a parking place between 31st March and 17th April 2008 ... there are even more problems for the council.

If you have had a ticket on a yellow line since then you will be pleased to know that the CPZs are incorrectly signed.

If you have had a yellow line ticket since 31st March 2008 then you need to click the image on the left to find out why you should appeals.

Knowledge is power ... this will be the best (and most satisfying) £9.99 you have ever spent.

Parking Appeals 8 week focus on Camden

Over the next eight weeks Parking Appeals is going to focus on the illegal signs and lines in the London Borough of Camden.

The examples we give of unlawful signs are equally applicable across the whole of the country.

Remember ... Knowledge is power!

What we find outrageous is that the councils are fully aware of the legislation but rely on your lack of knowledge to enforce signs and lines they know to be illegal.

Parking Appeals shows you how to appeal tickets issued in locations like the ones shown.

Is it acceptable that they will cancel tickets for those who know the law but keep the money from those who don't?

As part of our series of reports we will reveal how Camden Council's total disregard for the law and reckless indifference to the plight of motorists and residents alike has led to tens of thousands of motorists being fined illegally.

More inside the site ... and details of how you can appeal successfully in every instance.

Conti and Aaronovitch: a modern day version of pistols at dawn

The verbal jousting between journalist David Aaronovitch and actor Tom Conti has been richly entertaining. Why wouldn't it be? When two talented, articulate people fall out so publicly, all you need do is stand back and enjoy.

In case you're only just back from a week's holiday at Terminal 5 and wonder what this is about, it was Mr Aaronovitch who started the war of words at a public gathering by calling Mr Conti a 'ridiculous actor - a bloody nuisance' who ran to the papers every time someone tried to interfere with his 'bloody motor car'.

Back came Mr Conti, questioning his attacker's journalistic credentials by accusing him of misrepresentation, inaccuracy and, best of all, 'emotional vomit'.

It's great stuff. One writer to this newspaper suggests that in a more chivalrous age, it's a row that could only have been settled by the employment of pistols at dawn. Maybe not: duelling etiquette had it that only 'real gentlemen' were qualified to duel. If a gentleman was insulted by a person of 'lower class', he 'would not duel him' but would 'beat him with a cane, riding crop, or whip, or have his servants do so'.

Now Mr Conti may have bona fide claims to being something of a gentleman, but Mr Aaronovitch does not. He's a journalist.

The whole affair is far too entertaining to be reduced to an argument about rights and wrongs. But if forced to take sides, I'd have to be with Mr Conti, and not just because this newspaper has also been on the wrong side of one of Mr Aaronovitch's ill-considered attacks prompted by our criticism of Camden's chaotic parking enforcement.

For starters, it's pretty daft for him to chide his rival for 'running to the newspapers' when he himself walks, runs, cycles or, for all I know, paraglides to a newspaper office on a regular basis to earn a living.

Anyway, journalists should treasure people who knock on our doors. How else would we know what is going on in the real world?

On traffic issues, Mr Conti identifies with very tangible public frustrations. Mr Aaronovitch identifies with a pie-in-the-sky, fairies-at-the-bottom-of-the-garden kind of vision in which all traffic is banned around the Heath except for ''a circular tram system all the way around, letting people get on and off where they want to - completely wonderful.'' Had I read that on Tuesday, it would have seemed like an implausible April Fool spoof.

Nor would his description of Mr Conti as 'a bloody nuisance' be recognised by the many people the local actor has helped for very many reasons and in very many ways - without ever 'running to the papers' or seeking even a sliver of public recognition.

Ham & High

Camden political spatting over parking reveals accounting "errors"

Cllr Penny Abraham Shadow Executive Member for Environment, Camden Council wrote a public letter in the Ham & High last week questioning Camdens new "fairer parking policy".

The following week Mike Greene responded blaming the apparent $4 million increase in revenue on an "accounting mistake under the previous Labour administration".

Cllr Penny Abraham's letter

THE Lib Dems and Tories campaigned on 'fairer parking policies' in the local election of 2006. Now we learn that Camden's parking revenue has gone up by a staggering 22 per cent in two years, since they took over.

Last year, 559,156 parking tickets were issued, and £22.7million. brought in to the council's coffers - an increase of £4million on the last year. This is the biggest rise next to that in neighbouring Westminster. Does this sound like a 'fairer parking policy'?

You would think that, with all the talk about getting cars off the road for the sake of the environment, there should be fewer tickets, not more! This sounds as if the new administration is saying one thing and doing another. And let's hear specifically what the additional £4million is to be spent on.

Cllr Penny Abraham

Shadow Executive Member for Environment, Camden Council

Mike Greene's response defending Camden's parking enforcement policy

I would like to respond to Labour councillor Penny Abraham (H&H letters February 7) regarding the apparent increase in parking revenues in 2006/07 compared with the previous year. In particular she states ''there should be fewer parking tickets, not more!''

Quite right... and there were indeed fewer tickets issued under the first year of our administration than either of the previous two when Labour was in charge: 20,000 fewer.

It is surprising as shadow executive member for environment that Cllr Abraham seems to have forgotten that the £4million 'increase' in revenue was almost entirely due to an accounting mistake under the previous Labour administration, which led to a massive under-reporting of revenue for 2005/06 - a year in which more tickets were handed out than any year before or since. That is why 2006/07 revenue looked higher than the previous year, even though fewer tickets were issued.

Additionally, the percentage of people actually paying the fines received has also improved for a number of reasons. For example, all parking attendants now have digital cameras, which provide better proof of a contravention and reduce the likelihood of disputes.

We also introduced a new parking management system which means cases are progressed more swiftly.

The council does not enforce parking regulations to make money. Parking rules are there to make the roads safer, to protect scarce parking spaces for those who have a right to park there (such as residents, disabled drivers and shoppers who pay for Pay and Display), and reduce congestion and keep traffic flowing in what is one of the busiest and biggest boroughs in London.

Money raised by parking goes straight back into improving services. Specific examples include a contribution to the major Kentish Town and Chalk Farm town centre improvements and new security devices at motorcycle bays to reduce thefts. Money is also spent on providing the freedom pass to pensioners, on home-to-school transport, on maintaining parking facilities and on highway improvement schemes.

As a council we are committed to offering a fair deal on parking. There is still work to be done, but over the past year and a half we have achieved a great deal that rarely receives acknowledgment, including:

A new mobile patrol unit to monitor suspended bays and release them back into use more quickly

Agreeing innovative solutions to suspended parking bay problems such as e-mail alerts to notify drivers about suspensions in particular areas

Giving permit holders seven days' grace before towing away their car if their permit has expired

Effectively ending all car clamping (disabled badge fraud and persistent offenders excepted)

Reducing towing by 60 per cent.

Trialling cash-free Chip and PIN meters to make life easier for drivers using pay and display bays

Piloting the introduction of parking permits for visitors south of Euston Road and extending permits for those visiting elderly or housebound residents across the borough

Publishing guides for drivers on how to avoid getting a ticket and how to understand the appeals system

If only Labour had a similar story to tell of any 18-month period during their 36 years in office!

Cllr Mike Greene

Executive Member, Environment, Camden Council

Mayor gets done!

Clampdown on CAM 300C: mayor Somper falls foul of parking wardens in Hampstead on Monday

‘I don’t know whose car it is – It shouldn’t be parked there’ – Mayor gets done!

IT is the picture that will make every motorist that has ever felt hard done by a parking ticket smile with glee: the Mayor of Camden’s car parked illegally in Hampstead – and getting the once over from two wardens.
The limo, put at the disposal of Conservative mayor councillor Dawn Somper, was spotted on double yellow line outside the Bombay Bicycle Club restaurant in Downshire Hill, Hampstead, on Monday afternoon.
Cllr Somper had been chauffeur driven to the Indian curry house to hob-nob with the trustees and performers of the annual arts and culture event, the Hampstead and Highgate festival (see preview on page 20-21).
But while she was inside enjoying Indian nibbles and a glass of wine, Camden’s wardens were photographing her car and preparing to slap a £60 fine under the windscreen.
The warden, who would not be named, said: “It’s not supposed to be on a double yellow, is it? I do not know whose car it is – if it’s parked illegally, it’s parked illegally.”
Despite the fact the car had a distinctive personalised number plate and the civic shield stuck to the roof, the warden dutifully began to fill out a ticket – before ringing up his bosses at the town hall to double check whether he should issue the fine.
Parking fines became a key political issue in the council elections of two years ago: the Conservatives made political capital out of what they saw as Camden’s unfair parking fine regime when they came into power with the Lib-Dems, and promised to ban clamping.
Cllr Somper was not perturbed by her brush with the boys in green: she let the wardens get on with it, and told the New Journal her car has a permit which allows her to park anywhere at any time, meaning any ticket issued would be waived.
A council spokesman said: “The mayor, as the first citizen of the borough, attends around 500 engagements each year. She has a permit which allows her to park on both double and single yellow lines without restrictions while on official duty,
“If the driver can’t find a space, they can park in restricted areas.”

Camden new Journal

Camden Parking Debts via 5 Bailiff Companies

At an executive committee meeting on 31st October Camden Council reccomended its bailiff enforcement contract be awarded to 5 as yet unamed companies.

The estimated annual contract value based on the debt collection income of these contracts is £1,400,000.00 for a term of five years commencing on 3rd December 2007

As a result of some poor practice within the enforcement industry, some of which as been highlighted in the media, the evaluation panel posed direct and difficult questions to achieve assurances on the points that were raised as areas of concern. Clarification was sought with regards to audit processes and controls, management involvement and changes that had been implemented as a result. The evaluation panel was not satisfied that all tenderers had addressed all issues satisfactorily.


Officers within the Council’s Parking Services Recovery Rate team identified areas of concern when designing the new specification including issues identified by debtors, Executive Members, local and national media, trade publications and Council Officers. Changes to the contract specification are wide ranging and include the following:

• External mail house must be used to send all first letters to debtors

• Bailiffs must be equipped with GPS technology for retrospective proof of visits undertaken

• Bailiffs must be equipped with personal digital assistants (PDA’s) or alternative approved handheld equipment to verify activity against the case

• The implementation of a solution to monitor and audit all correspondence left by bailiffs at a debtors residence

• Defined fee structure and cap of £250 + VAT Requirement to satisfy ‘Mystery Shopping’ exercises

• Greater responsiveness to deal with Persistent Evaders, but with more opportunity for debtors to settle their case prior to escalation of fees

Camden contract award