Eric Pickles seeking to amend the law to stop bailiffs collecting parking fines !!!!

[tomtubby]

This morning the Local Government Secretary; Eric Pickles shocked local authorities ( and no doubt bailiff companies) by announcing that he is seeking to "outlaw" local authorities from using CCTV camera's and "spy cars" to "milk" parking fines from motorists !!

 

Additionally, Eric Pickles is seeking to amend the law to stop councils from using bailiffs to collect parking fines !!!

 

Clearly there is no messing around with Eric Pickles as his office are planning to release a Consultation Paper later this month with the consultation period running for 6 weeks with plans to implement the new changes from January.

 

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/transport/10337749/Councils-using-CCTV-cameras-to-fine-motorists-to-be-made-illegal-within-months.html

[outlawla]

Every article has to have one doesn't it.

 

Councillor Tony Ball, Vice chairman of the Local Government Association’s Economy and Transport Board, said:

 

"

....

Nobody likes getting a parking fine but the fact that less than one per cent go to adjudication shows that in the vast majority of cases councils get it right

.

 

Clearly that's because it's the local authority making the decision about how many appeals are allowed.

[tomtubby]

Local authorities are aware that they are not allowed to use income from parking to "prop" up other departments and this is not being adhered to.

 

Bailiff companies have themselves to blame entirely if Eric Pickles amends the law to stop councils using bailiffs and I have said very often on this forum that bailiffs are "milking the cash cow until it turns sour" and it is absolutely dreadful that they can attempt to charge up to £1,000 ( and in many cases much more) for a parking ticket with "face value" of just £40-70. Greed on an unprecedented scale.

 

Everything to do with parking ticket enforcement went completely wrong when bailiffs had the idea of enforcing unpaid PCN's by way of ANPR vehicles.

 

Instead of visiting the property to seek payment the bailiff instead merely drives around the streets of London (and superstore outlets) looking for the registration number of a car that had been driven by the keeper on the day on which a contravention had occurred !!

 

In other words...the bailiff is NOT looking to collect payment from the person named on the warrant and instead....is looking to seize the vehicle involved in the contravention. How this can ever be deemed legal is simply beyond me !!

[hallowitch]

will this include wales

[citizenB]

I see they are looking to extend the period of time for people to return to their vehicles from 5 to 15 minutes.

 

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/bid-put-brake-parking-spies-020447358.html#vDyyiuO

 

 

Mr Pickles said the Government was also looking at increasing the "grace" period for motorists to get back to their vehicle before being fined from five minutes to 15 minutes.

[brassnecked]

will this include wales

This was on the Jeremy Vine show this lunchtime and it was indicated that it would apply to England & Wales, Oh their must be much crying into their beer by bailiffs and council officials at this moment.

 

@ tomtubby, the ANPR sc*m is wrong on more than one count, as the vehicle seized is often in the hands of a new keeper who the likes of JBW con into paying to get the unlawfully seized motor back, and as the police are actively helping with their "Crime Spot checks and stopping these vehicles for bailiffs are also complicit if fraud and effectively blackmail.

 

This will blow up in Mr Pickles's face if the councils and JBW persist, and the new TCGA comes in and more legitimate new owners are losing their car due to inability to afford the interpleader to claim them back.

[hallowitch]

I'm wondering how they are going to enforce Parking fines without bailiffs

[brassnecked]

I'm wondering how they are going to enforce Parking fines without bailiffs

Inflate the debt to £700 ish by getting a CCJ, and sending the Sheriffs Office in possibly, or finding a way to use in house bailiffs like Denbighsire CC

[Fulhamboy]

In my borough ( Hammersmith + Fulham ) There is a notorious box junction which

has been featured on the telly . It made 2.7m in fines last year! Self congratulatory e mails were sent between council employees basically saying congrats and trebles all round. On the plus side the revenue is being used allegedly to keep the council tax down. I thought the money was supposed to go back into making the roads safer

and cycle lanes et al . It is coming to something when it is cheaper to park in Westfields shopping centre for 8 hrs than park your car in the surrounding streets which are patrolled 16hrs a day seven days a week. Fracking parasites.

[outlawla]

.....On the plus side the revenue is being used allegedly to keep the council tax down....

 

Is that one of Hammersmith & Fulham Council's divide and rule policies?

[Fulhamboy]

Do not get me started . We are going to be the guinea pigs in London for the universal credits. People on benefits will have to go x amount of weeks without benefits . probably before X mas and the impoverished will be spending the money on other things like food rather than the rent and c/tax . The council will have a zero tolerance to rent arrears and will be evicting people willy nilly then selling the vacant properties off for silly money. The housing waiting list has been closed for quiet some time and only v high prioritized people might get help. I thought rotten boroughs were done away in the 18th century

[lamma]

Every article has to have one doesn't it.

 

Councillor Tony Ball, Vice chairman of the Local Government Association’s Economy and Transport Board, said:

"

....

Nobody likes getting a parking fine but the fact that less than one per cent go to adjudication shows that in the vast majority of cases councils get it right

.

 

Clearly that's because it's the local authority making the decision about how many appeals are allowed.

 

Mr Ball's argument is utterly fallacious and patently so.

[brassnecked]

Mr Ball's argument is utterly fallacious and patently so.

 

That quotation could well come back and bite him on the bum when the truth about the council and bailiff shenanigans on parking tickets hits the fan.

[tomtubby]

I can assure anyone reading this thread that today has been VERY interesting indeed and the bailiff companies are simply livid with DCLG with most of them believing that today's announcement is just a lot of "hot air" . In which case they are living in "cloud cuckoo land" !!!

 

Todays announcement was not only from DCLG but from the DfT as well and any bailiffs companies or local authorities that are moaning need to thank none other than Harrow Council for todays announcement.

 

There is a lot more going on "behind the scenes" and the next 2 months could be very serious for bailiff companies and in particular for those that mainly enforce traffic debts.....

[josephbloggs]

I know people dislike parking fines and wardens and the process of collection has a lot of flaws. But if parking in a city centre wasnt subject to parking restrictions, within weeks many places would be gridlock! Prime example the council in aberystwyth - begging for the wardens to be re introduced.. And lets be honest some people in this country would be stupid enough to park in the middle lane of the motorway if it was close to where they wanted to be, slight exaggeration but point made all the same.

mr pickles should instead consider ironing out the flaws in collection (ie only having the address where the keeper was registered to on the day of the fine, resulting in anpr bailiff problems,) or get rid of petty fines (where for example a tyre goes over the line of a bus lane by 2 inches and gets caught on camera)

[brassnecked]

@ josephbloggs"or get rid of petty fines (where for example a tyre goes over the line of a bus lane by 2 inches and gets caught on camera)"

 

Well yes that is what Eric Pickles is trying to address but the councils and bailiffs are so used to sucking at the CCTV enforcement teat that they will cut frontline services and blame it in the loss of revenue from the often , unlawful due to non compliance CCTV enforcement.that should not even be a source of revenue anyway.

 

There is nothing wrong per se with wardens doing the job correctly with common sense.

[Fulhamboy]

Stick traffic wardens ( not semi illiterate " civil enforcement officers " with zero people skills ) on the hot spots to stop people taking the mickey . That is how it use to work. Then the councils will bleat that they haven't the finance to pay for them .

ps

civil enforcement officer ? Does the title make them more butch or give them super powers ?

[Voxter]

Wouldnt make much difference if you got rid of cctv. Councils will just bring in private warden firms and have lots more people on the ground sharing the profits.. Whats next.....banning a photo of a car parked illegally. Sounds like pickles got stuffed by an anpr or one of his relatives got a few tickets. The collection system as it is will be fine once the new bailiff regs come in. It will stop greedy firms. I think councils like croydon would have a lot to lose without cctv. Ive had one parking fine in 5 years, its all avoidable.

[brassnecked]

@ Fulhamboy "Does the title make them more butch or give them super powers ?"

 

They evidently think the title makes them akin to Power Rangers who can morh into the Mega Ticket Zord, and issue penalties as if Judge Dredd.

 

In reality it turns them into penypidyn (Cymraeg) Richard head(English), devoid ov even a scarp of decency or common humanity as illustrated here

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2014230/Scooter-rider-leg-broken-traffic-warden-opened-car-door-receives-ticket-crashed-machine.html

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1393477/Another-fine-mess--Over-zealous-traffic-wardens-slaps-parking-ticket-MOBILITY-SCOOTER.html

 

 

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/10225586/Britains-meanest-traffic-wardens.html

[brassnecked]

Wouldnt make much difference if you got rid of cctv. Councils will just bring in private warden firms and have lots more people on the ground sharing the profits.. Whats next.....banning a photo of a car parked illegally. Sounds like pickles got stuffed by an anpr or one of his relatives got a few tickets. The collection system as it is will be fine once the new bailiff regs come in. It will stop greedy firms. I think councils like croydon would have a lot to lose without cctv. Ive had one parking fine in 5 years, its all avoidable.

 

We have this situation in Conwy, where Kingdom enforcement have slapped a mother with a fine for a dummy that a toddler dropped from a pushchair, the ticket was being issued even as the mother picked it up. this company are driving Conwy residents mad, as they look like Oswald Moseley's Blackshirts with the addition of a flak jacket.

[hallowitch]

that happened to a family member when they were up that way on a day out with the grandchildren

 

child about 2ish was in his pram dropped his sweetie wrapper when he was handing it to his granny she pick it up but was still fine £60

 

they not going back there for a day out

[brassnecked]

that happened to a family member when they were up that way on a day out with the grandchildren

 

child about 2ish was in his pram dropped his sweetie wrapper when he was handing it to his granny she pick it up but was still fine £60

 

they not going back there for a day out

Conwy CC are a particularly incompetent and generally nasty bunch, their previous contractors for Civil Enforcement Xfor a bunch of thugs in black who looked like vagrants with a flak jacket, went titsup, and the replacement Kingdom are worse, ticketing almost at will even if no offence is committed as in the litter was immediately picked up, as soon as it was dropped. they would ticket a pensioner who dropped a fiver and picked it up straight away. "Your word against mine luv, and who do you think the court would believe?" he would retort when challenged.

 

To see the shenanigans in Conwy Thoughts of Oscar is a good yardstick of the actions of the denziens of the Council HQ at Bodlondeb, aptly named "The Temple of Waste" by Oscar, a thorn in the council's foot if ever there was one.

 

http://thoughtsofoscar.blogspot.co.uk/

 

 

BTW how is Wrexham Council these days Hallow, my day job now takes me to Wrexham most days?

[hallowitch]

Conwy CC are a particularly incompetent and generally nasty bunch, their previous contractors for Civil Enforcement Xfor a bunch of thugs in black who looked like vagrants with a flak jacket, went titsup, and the replacement Kingdom are worse, ticketing almost at will even if no offence is committed as in the litter was immediately picked up, as soon as it was dropped. they would ticket a pensioner who dropped a fiver and picked it up straight away. "Your word against mine luv, and who do you think the court would believe?" he would retort when challenged.

 

To see the shenanigans in Conwy Thoughts of Oscar is a good yardstick of the actions of the denziens of the Council HQ at Bodlondeb, aptly named "The Temple of Waste" by Oscar, a thorn in the council's foot if ever there was one.

 

http://thoughtsofoscar.blogspot.co.uk/

 

 

BTW how is Wrexham Council these days Hallow, my day job now takes me to Wrexham most days?

 

as incompetent as ever(sending you a PM) let me know the next time your here and I will meet you for a coffee in your lunch break

[tomtubby]

Local authorities are aware that they are not allowed to use income from parking to "prop" up other departments and this is not being adhered to.

 

Bailiff companies have themselves to blame entirely if Eric Pickles amends the law to stop councils using bailiffs and I have said very often on this forum that bailiffs are "milking the cash cow until it turns sour" and it is absolutely dreadful that they can attempt to charge up to £1,000 ( and in many cases much more) for a parking ticket with "face value" of just £40-70. Greed on an unprecedented scale.

 

Everything to do with parking ticket enforcement went completely wrong when bailiffs had the idea of enforcing unpaid PCN's by way of ANPR vehicles.

 

Instead of visiting the property to seek payment the bailiff instead merely drives around the streets of London (and superstore outlets) looking for the registration number of a car that had been driven by the keeper on the day on which a contravention had occurred !!

 

In other words...the bailiff is NOT looking to collect payment from the person named on the warrant and instead....is looking to seize the vehicle involved in the contravention. How this can ever be deemed legal is simply beyond me !!

 

.

.

 

On Friday I was sent a copy of the "background" papers regarding these proposals and it may well seem that the brakes will be put on the use of ANPR vehicles to enforce unpaid PCN's. If so...I will be DELIGHTED and this could not come soon enough. This frankly appalling practice should have been stopped long ago.

 

PS: I will be writing to both Ministers about the other draconian method of PCN enforcement that is now common place around London. These are the "roadside operations" involving the metropolitan police and where they work in conjunction with the bailiff company to use ANPR to "pull over" a vehicle that has been identified as having an unpaid PCN.

[brassnecked]

@tomtubby, these ANPR stings could well be open to challenge next year when the TCGA comes into effect and legitimate mew owners lose their vehicles due to DVLA incompetence, and cannot afford the interpleader. Surely these ANPR stings and the new interpleaders breach Due Process, and procedural fairness?