PRIVATE PARKING
FEATURE
Industry sources suggest that almost
three quarters of badge misuse is attributable to family and friends of the registered disabled driver
reporting around parking tends to focus on the apparently unfair, over-zealous and occasionally baffling application of regulations. It’s newsworthy, but is it representative of the facts? Here are just a few of the heartfelt cries, as captured from the BBC News website on the day the new law came into force. ‘This poorly thought-through law now opens up my car park to anyone who wants to use it. As the owner of a small restaurant, I now have no control over my own property other than to issue parking charges that won’t be paid.’ ‘What about people like myself? I’m a flat owner with private parking downstairs. I am forever being unable to park as people ignore the private parking sign. Without the threat of wheel clamping, what will it be like now?’ ‘There has to be a real and instant penalty to those that steal the use of other
www.britishparking.co.uk
people’s land. Car drivers do not own every space they park on.’ Let’s take one aspect of the problem. In our crowded island, there are more than 30 million registered vehicles on the roads and, according to the Papworth organisation, some 1.9 million disabled drivers. For car parks with more than 200 spaces, the regulations require four per cent to be allocated to the disabled, while supermarkets, shopping centres and leisure centres must set aside six per cent of their spaces for disabled customers. Sally Russell, co-founder of Netmums and a campaigner for more designated family parking spaces, believes there are too many allocated disabled spaces. In 2010, presumably without any hint of irony, she said ‘We’ve been trying to get some of the big supermarkets to clamp down on people who shouldn’t be parking in these spaces.’ It’s certainly hard to please everyone.
FEBRUARY 2013 31
SLOBODAN MISKOVIC / SHUTTERSTOCK
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