Will there be a crackdown?

Consider that the DVLA is reported to trouser £1.4 million a month from selling vehicle registered owner details to the parking scammers.

So there might be a little itsy-bitsy crackdown, but nothing to upset the cashflow!

As I have commented on the piece it is already possible to sanction the companies. However the BPA are a cosy members club so can’t sanction companies who pay their wages as operators will move to the other even cosier members club, the IPC. Even a serious breach can only lead to 5 points and 12 are needed within a 12 month period, so no chance. It has also been alleged companies who were sanctioned merely collected registrations and applied after the sanction had ended!

I would say, as someone who is regularly affected by serial problem parking where I live (and so do lots of people living on non-council adopted developments), we need to be balanced about the use of the law to properly but fairly go after only people who break rules that fair themselves fair and that are enforced fairly as well.

As a 'resident director' (essentially the equivalent of an MP or councillor on the development where I live) we often cannot 'go after' people who regularly park additional cars/vans (each home has one or two allocated spaces and we only have visitor parking for 30 cars for 140 properties, and no room for on street parking [too narrow - no room for bin lorries, delivery and fire trucks, etc]) in other people's allocated spaces, visitor only bays or on the street (blocking them sometimes - the bin men have threatened to stop coming in the past when it was REALLY bad).

People 'get away with it' because parking firms often don't like going to court (even if they have all the right info) and people with company/leased cars can more easily get away with it because the 'owner' isn't technically a resident (and could be 'argued' to be a visitor), even though the car is run by one. We use decent signage everywhere and make sure there are easy-to-understand rules (with permits) for residents and visitors, but people just try their luck, especially when (evenings and weekends) the parking wardens don't like coming around. We even have the power (and use it occasionally) to rescind tickets if we decide the case isn't fair or for first offences for new residents (we write to them to explain, just once though) - probably why some parking firms don't want to work with us.

I can fully understand the problems people often suffer at the hands of unscrupulous operators and under poorly written rules (e.g. 3 or 4 hours free parking before the £100 fine kicks in in retail parks that have cinemas in them - watching a long film and having a meal can easily take more than that, let alone doing any shopping beforehand), but the system needs to be better managed at all levels and be fair to all parties.