Car clamper ordered to pay back £3 million - or face ten years in jail

Tweet

Fraudster Steven Ryan, who ran  Birmingham firm conning motorists with faulty parking meter, given six months to find cash

A fraudster who ran a notorious Birmingham car clamping company has been ordered to pay back almost £3million – or face ten years in jail.

Steven Ryan, 56, was given six months to find the money after a judge ruled he had benefited by £2,837,349 from his business, Car Clamping Securities.

Read the full article here

Councils rake in record profits from parking

Tweet

Councils in England have raked in record profits from parking with one town hall boosting its income by more than 50 per cent in a year, official figures have shown.

Local authorities, who have seen their profit from parking increase 14.9 per cent in a year to £411 million, have admitted they are using the cash to plug gaps in their spending because of budget cuts.

The Local Government Association admitted, for the first time, that it has been able to use the cash from parking to make good losses such as the £442 million in their highways budget.

Read the full article here

BBC - Parking Mad

Tweet

Observational documentary about people who fight their parking tickets.

In 2012, more parking tickets are issued in the UK than ever before and new technologies to catch motorists continue to be deployed across the country. This film follows the stories of both the council parking enforcement departments who issue tickets - and the motorists who have decided to fight back against the system.

Aside from the stories of the ordinary motorists fighting their individual tickets, the film also follows 'parking campaigners', dedicated amateurs who insist that the councils are unjustly punishing motorists and using parking as a way to raise revenues. These individuals are passionate about pointing out the injustices of the system, battling the councils and saving other motorists from receiving 'unjust tickets'. Their methods are extremely varied. Some get tickets deliberately to prove their point, others take their parking tickets to the High Court, whilst one group have even formed a masked motorcycle gang to take their fight to the streets.

The film also hears from the other side of the issue - the Traffic Penalty Tribunal, the legally-binding national body that has the final say on whether motorists must pay their parking tickets or not.

Watch more videos on NMAGTV here

EU demands access to details of all UK drivers: 'Orwellian' move to hand out personal information to foreign police forces

Tweet

Brussels is demanding that 26 police forces across the EU should have access to the personal details of every motorist in Britain.

The Government is being threatened with fines totalling millions of pounds unless it obeys the ‘Orwellian’ edict.

Foreign police also want open access to the UK’s national DNA database and fingerprint records so they can check them against crime scenes and camera footage.

Read the full article here

Councils accused of treating drivers like cash cows after parking fee profits soar by 15% in a year

Tweet

Councils have been accused of treating drivers as 'cash cows' after profits on parking charges soared by 15 per cent in a year 

while spending on road maintenance dropped.

Income from pay and display tickets, parking permits and fines rose by £50million to £411million in the year to the end of March 2012, figures yesterday showed.

For some local authorities the increase was far higher than the national average of 15 per cent.

Read the full article here

Grandmother fined £70 for going to car park twice

Tweet

Grandmother Heather Taw was given a £70 parking charge for using a supermarket in the morning – and then dropping her sister off there in the evening.

The 62-year-old visited Aldi on West Street, Fareham, on Thursday, December 17.

Mrs Taw, a care home chef, had popped in to the supermarket to go shopping in the morning and left around half an hour later.

read the full article here

Rail firms accused of 'ripping off' passengers by increasing car parking charges at stations

Tweet

The Transport Salaried Staffs' Association said charges for parking at railway stations had also gone up by more than the rate of inflation in many parts of the country.

Rail firms have been accused of “ripping off” passengers by increasing car parking charges at stations just days after train fares rose by an inflation-busting average of 4.2%.

The Transport Salaried Staffs' Association (TSSA) said charges for parking at railway stations had also gone up by more than the rate of inflation in many parts of the country.

Read the full article here