What is life like with your car? Let us know and win £500 in John Lewis vouchers | No thanks
I enquired with the government regarding a loophole in the Protection of Freedoms Bill relating to clamping.
As the Surrey County Cllr. for Camberley West I've spent hundreds of hours trying to help people in Cedar Lane CP Frimley who've been the victims of clamping. Some, of course, who were trying to avoid paying for parking probably deserved some retribution. However, to clamp drivers for an upside-down ticket, having a tyre on a white line etc is, in my view, unreasonable. Hundreds of people have been clamped in this small village car park and business is suffering.
It is, to quite a large extent, due to the efforts of Frimley businesses and me that the new clamping legislation is in the Protection of Freedoms Bill. Thus I was concerned to read your report last week relating to a possible loophole. I took this up - the reply is below. It has come from within Government but I cannot as yet mention the source.
It is, to quite a large extent, due to the efforts of Frimley businesses and me that the new clamping legislation is in the Protection of Freedoms Bill. Thus I was concerned to read your report last week relating to a possible loophole. I took this up - the reply is below. It has come from within Government but I cannot as yet mention the source.
Asked on 28 May 2011 by DF, via email
Answered by
Honest John
This ‘Government’ reply ended, "Consequently, the Government is broadening the ability of landowners who use parking control companies to pursue the driver or the keeper of the vehicle for unpaid fines."
This extremely sinister statement refers to section 56 of The Protection of Freedoms Bill that the British Parking Association is lobbying for in order that its members can pursue registered keepers of vehicles for any penalties incurred by drivers of those vehicles. So someone steals your car, parks it outside MacDonalds for longer than it takes to gulp down a hamburger and coffee, then you, the registered keeper, are legally compelled to pay whatever fine MacDonald's parking enforcement contractor cares to levy. Is that what you want? I hope not. Write to your MP now.
This extremely sinister statement refers to section 56 of The Protection of Freedoms Bill that the British Parking Association is lobbying for in order that its members can pursue registered keepers of vehicles for any penalties incurred by drivers of those vehicles. So someone steals your car, parks it outside MacDonalds for longer than it takes to gulp down a hamburger and coffee, then you, the registered keeper, are legally compelled to pay whatever fine MacDonald's parking enforcement contractor cares to levy. Is that what you want? I hope not. Write to your MP now.
Similar questions
Having been clamped on private land (where I was working, I parked in the wrong bay at a block of flats last week), I now carry a powerful angle grinder in my van. The nice Russian lad who came to remove...
Certainly I believe the proposals in the Protection of Freedoms Bill to allow 'keepers' to be penalised to be outrageous. In my view the BPA and SIA have done little to control the 'rogue clampers' and...
There is a massive potential loophole written into the draft legislation against clamping. It states that clamping on private land will still be legal where, in order to enter that land, the vehicle has...