40 YEARS OF THE BPA
Press-ganged? F
COLIN NAYLOR REFLECTS ON THE PAST FOUR DECADES WITH A LITTLE BEWILDERMENT...
or something that: reduces traffi c congestion; protects the interests of disabled drivers; reduces pollution; eases the demands on police resources and arguably makes streets safer, parking
enforcement gets a bad press. Perhaps that’s because virtually every driver will
get a parking fi ne at some point. Stories of bad luck, petty enforcement and unreasonable offi cialdom abound. Perhaps my favourite story concerns the driver who claimed that spotting a UFO was to blame for the non-payment of a parking fi ne. Since the introduction of the fi rst parking meter,
by the City of Westminster in 1958, and the advent of single and double yellows in that same year, we in the enforcement industry have seen various acts of parking legislation and decriminalisation, and – most lately – the government’s intention to outlaw wheel clamping on private land.
Where are the supporters? T roughout all this time, however, I doubt if there has been more than a handful of articles (outside the honourable exception of the parking press), which argue the case for parking enforcement. In this country we have more than 32 million
vehicles registered, all of them heading for Tesco at the same time as me. T e fi rst statistic is a matter of published government data, the second a private hypothesis of mine, but I’m sure you get the point. We live in a society that’s dense with traffi c,
where access to business and retail development overlaps with residential areas and where much of the transport infrastructure is in dire need of repair. Without parking enforcement, we’d have no parking control and in my view, we’d be in national gridlock before you could say ‘congestion charge’.
Shifting perceptions Speaking of which, is it simply my imagination that since 2003, when the London Mayor and incorrigible self-publicist Ken Livingstone fi rst introduced this idea, the enlightened view is moving from bad to good? Our Ken, a man who has the
34 SEPTEMBER 2010
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Colin Naylor is managing director of Dukes Bailiffs and chairman of the Association of Civil Enforcement Agencies.
singular accolade of having united the Labour and Conservative parties against him in the past, can now point to something that makes more than £100m a year, has reduced traffi c in the zone by 15 per cent and congestion by 30 per cent. Since parking has been decriminalised, we might
have expected something of a shift in public opinion but it seems it’s not the long arm of the law that matters, it’s the short sharp shock of the eff ect on the housekeeping. It’s true that our industry has had the limelight of a slot on Have I got news for you, but I haven’t noticed the OBEs rolling in around our profession. Every time legislation changes, every time the
media has another pop at our industry (‘Freddie Starr may have eaten my hamster but at least he let me park outside the post offi ce’), every time we see the local authorities under more pressure to collect their outstanding fi nes, this industry simply rolls up its sleeves and gets on with the job. All the member
organisations of ACEA are united in the cause of providing an eff ective collection service without
Congestion charging has become a popular measure
alienating the public. When we call to collect an unpaid parking charge we’re representing whoever contracts us to do so in the mind of the debtor. Well, the Beatles immortalised Rita the Meter Maid and even Bob Dylan refers to parking meters in the classic ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’ but no-one has, as yet, penned a lyrical tribute to those of us in the enforcement community. My contention, however, is that without us,
local and national taxpayers would be forking out far more to cover unpaid revenue and living in a country where any form of road transport would be reduced to a standstill. Elsewhere in this publication I hope you’ll see a
new ad for Dukes, where we advocate a fi rm but fair approach. In congratulating the BPA on its 40th anniversary, I’d like to enter a plea on behalf of the industry for exactly the same praise. It’s 40 years overdue!
www.britishparking.co.uk
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