FEATURE ON-STREET PARKING – PCN REVIEW
Parking
conundrums
LAST MONTH IN PARKING NEWS WE PUBLISHED A LETTER FROM BPA CHIEF EXECUTIVE PATRICK TROY TO TRANSPORT MINISTER, SADIQ KHAN, REQUESTING A REVIEW OF PARKING CHARGES. SARAH JUGGINS LOOKS AT SOME OF THE ISSUES
H
ave you ever wondered why parking on a double yellow line in London costs you £80 or £120, whereas two miles down the road in the Home Counties you could commit the same
contravention and be charged £70? Equally, have you wondered why some local
authorities are able to report a surplus of funds from parking revenue in their annual reports, while others complain that they cannot aff ord to run the service and need to use money generated by council tax payments to maintain essential parking services? T ese are just some of the inconsistencies that
abound in the world of local authority parking, and that is why the BPA is calling for an urgent review of penalty charge notices (PCNs) – whether by this government or the one that will take offi ce later in the year. T e BPA has been asking for a review of PCNs
since 2007, when local authorities expressed concern over the introduction of diff erential penalty charging under the 2004 Traffi c Management Act. At that stage the government ministers decided to make no changes, arguing rightly that parking charges should act as a deterrent, not a revenue raiser.
Historical context
To put the current parking situation into context, it is necessary to travel back to the 1984 Road Traffi c Regulation Act, which empowered local authorities to set traffi c regulations. Under this system a motorist could end up paying a fi xed penalty charge and an excess charge for the same contravention. Of this money, the fi xed penalty would be paid to the state while the local authority would receive income from the excess charge. Under the 1991 Road Traffi c Act, local authorities
lobbied successfully to decriminalise parking and remove the duty from the police. All money
26 APRIL 2010
Move on… parking charges should act as a deterrent.
collected under PCNs then went straight to the local authorities. Matters were simplifi ed as the act also introduced one PCN per contravention, rather than two. T e 2004 TMA was introduced in England and,
under this act, the introduction of civil parking enforcement (CPE) came into being. While the government would like all the local authorities in England and Wales to switch to parking enforcement under the TMA 2004, at present this is not the case. All towns and cities operate under TMA 2004 but many rural areas still operate under older legislation. T e 2004 TMA has two levels of charging; a
low-level penalty charge for minor traffi c contraventions such as overstaying in a parking bay, and a higher level charge for off ences that cause disturbance to traffi c fl ow, parking on a double yellow line for example.
The BPA has been asking for a review of PCNs since 2007
Councils suff er shortfall
T e problem for local authorities switching to this dual charging level, is the money fl owing into the local authority coff ers is, in many cases, not enough to cover the cost of maintaining a good traffi c network. T e lower- level contraventions are the most prevalent and these charges, for
many rural areas, are lower than the excess charge already in place. In London this problem has not occurred as both
London Councils and Transport for London (TfL) ensured that the charge level they set achieved the desired level of improvement in compliance with parking controls. Coincidentally, they also kept the average income from PCN charges at a level at which the council tax payer did not have to subsidise the service. T ese new levels were set at £120 and their lower levels at £80.
www.britishparking.co.uk
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