FEATURE ON-STREET PARKING – PCN REVIEW
that, for the government to persuade all local authorities to switch to TMA 2004, it needs to review the charges and allow local authorities to set the charges at appropriate levels. ‘Te government could abandon the idea of setting
charges nationally and allow it to happen locally. Tis would allow the local authorities to set a charge that is appropriate.’ He does stress, however, that for such a situation
to work it would need a mechanism in place to ensure fairness and to ‘prevent over-zealous charging by some authorities.’ Tis could take the form of a parking regulator,
Outside London, higher level charges were set
at £70 and the lower level charges at £50, less than the old charge, which was typically around £60. Because the low level is by far the most common type of contravention, as rural authorities are mainly enforcing contraventions in car parks, it led to a fall in income of 15 to 20 per cent for many local authorities that had switched to the 2004 TMA. Kelvin Reynolds, BPA technical director, explained
THE REVIEW IS NOT TO ENABLE PARKING DEPARTMENTS TO MAKE MONEY, BUT SIMPLY TO ENSURE THAT THE FINES ARE APPROPRIATE TO ACT AS DETERRENTS
an idea first mooted by the BPA 10 years ago and revisited at the Parking Summit last year.
Fitting the crime
In his letter, Troy emphasised that the review is not to enable parking departments to make money, but simply to ensure that the charges are appropriate to act as deterrents – and that they do not leave the local authorities with a shortfall. Reynolds concurs with this: ‘Setting a charge at a
particular level is to achieve higher compliance levels with parking controls. In many car parks the daily charge is now approaching the discounted level of penalty, which clearly discourages compliance.’
www.britishparking.co.uk
APRIL 2010
27
© JAY WILLIAMS
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