Traffic policing or highway robbery? Car users hit back

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With their plastic masks, high-visibility jackets and flags streaming from their motorbikes, they look like a cross between superheroes and vigilantes.

The gang, known as the No To Mob, roam through city centres hunting for closed-circuit television enforcement vehicles, or “spy cars”, which they trail to warn motorists of the risk of an impending fine. 

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Parking ticket crusader faces selling his home after losing £40,000 legal fight against council over bays and signs

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A grandfather could be forced to sell his home to pay £40,000 in legal costs after losing a High Court battle over parking tickets.

Barry Moss launched a one-man crusade against his local council and successfully appealed against dozens of tickets for friends, family – and even strangers.

The retired roofer argued that Bolton Council’s parking bays and signage did not comply with Department for Transport regulations. But when he took the council’s auditors, KPMG, to the High Court to claim some of the authority’s income had therefore been obtained illegally, he lost the case.

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‘Parking mad’ Barry set to be star on TV

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A PENSIONER who once described himself as a “thorn in the side” of Bolton Council’s parking department is set to star in a BBC documentary.

Parking Mad airs on BBC 1 tomorrow and features the story of Barry Moss, from Westhoughton.

He waged an unsuccessful High Court case against Bolton Council’s auditors KPMG in 2010, after he claimed the authority had gained money from issuing “unlawful” tickets.

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‘Cash cow’ parking charges made £26million for Islington Council

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Town hall bosses have been accused of treating motorists as “cash cows” after Islington raked in £26million in parking charges – more than double its larger neighbour Hackney.

Islington Council ranked sixth highest out of the country’s 371 authorities in revenue from parking tickets, permits and pay-and-display charges in the financial year 2011 to 2012 – despite being the second smallest borough in London.


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Westminster council blasted for cashing in on parking fines

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Westminster council raked in five times more in parking charges and fines per household than any other London borough, Labour claimed today.

The Tory council made £637.31 per household, followed by Kensington & Chelsea — also Conservative — on £485.90, according to figures about council revenues from on- and off-street parking and fines.

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Birmingham Jewellery Quarter parking sensors piloted

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A pilot street parking scheme has been launched in Birmingham aimed at helping motorists find available spaces in part of the city.

Some 200 sensors have been embedded in selected roads in the Jewellery Quarter area that are designed to detect the presence of a parked vehicle.

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Parking charges top £1bn as council plug budgets

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Motorists are paying more than £1 billion a year for parking as councils search for new ways to earn money in the wake of government cuts, it emerged today.

Researchers found that Conservative-run councils rake in far more from parking charges than town halls under Labour.

According to research published by the opposition, households in London are spending more than £600 a year on residents' permits, meters and fines.

Eric Pickles, the Communities Secretary, has vowed to expose what he calls a ''great council cash-cow cover-up'' by forcing authorities to publish parking revenue.

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