Richard Baum

Information uncovered by the Liberal Democrats shows that across England almost three times more parking tickets were issued following the Road Traffic Act of 1991 which allowed local authorities to take over enforcement of parking from the police.

Liberal Democrat Shadow Transport Secretary Norman Baker said:

“Illegal parking must be tackled in order to ensure safe and clear roads and local authority enforcement is a very important part of this.

“The scale of the increase in parking tickets following decriminalisation is extremely worrying.

“Motorists need to have confidence in the system. The Government needs to introduce an independent parking regulator to ensure that appeals are dealt with fairly and impartially and to ensure that car parking operators, local authorities and private firms are all held to consistent national standards.”

I get lots of angry residents ringing me about parking tickets which they think are unfair, and which often strike me as being at the excessive end of the scale. There is often a lack of common sense and understanding, sometimes from both sides, and this could be dealt with by national standards which are clearly understood by both drivers and parking enforcers.

Rick