Rogue wheel clamping ends – but what will take its place?

I sympathise with the owners of private land and with residents and workers who are entitled to use a private car park. They need some sort of deterrent to unauthorised parking but clamping is not the right answer – especially because it immobilises the vehicle in an unwanted position. This is particularly detrimental for people who have an allocated parking place in a private car park and cannot therefore just occupy somebody else’s if there own is blocked.

I believe the government should have gone further and made any penalty demanded by any body that is not a member of an ATA unenforceable in law and any attempt to detain a vehicle if the driver refuses to pay an instant fine should prima facie be a case of extortion or demanding money with menaces. Property owners wishing to avail themselves of the enforceability of penalties via the DVLA system, and using a body that is a member of an ATA, should be obliged to put up sufficient clear and effective warning notices saying that unauthorised parking is prohibited, what the penalty is if enforcement action is taken, and stating the days and hours during which enforcement takes place. Any parking ticket should also be as detailed as a local authority penalty charge notice and fully explain the payment arrangements and appeal rights. Furthermore, the operatives who execute enforcement action on private property should be required to make full notes in their recording devices of the time, vehicle make and colour, tax disc details, and tyre inflation valve positions in order to substantiate that they were on the spot when they logged the violation and to prevent erroneous enforcement, all such data to be submitted if any appeal by the vehicle owner is contested. Local authorities enjoy immunity from liability in the event of an appeal being upheld; it might be worth rescinding that immunity in the case of private operators who have a bad track record of unjustified enforcement action so that they became liable to pay costs and/or compensation if a penalty is cancelled on appeal.

I feel particularly strongly that proper warning notices should be mandatory. Two major supermarkets near me have obscure signs near their entrances, placed where drivers cannot possibly take note of them if they are concentrating on negotiating roundabouts, pedestrian crossings and the movements of other traffic. These notices take a whole paragraph to say that parking is only allowed for up to three hours, that there is a penalty of £75 if caught overstaying, and that wheel-clamping may be used for enforcement . There is no obvious verifiable mechanism in place for recording the arrival time of vehicles or whether they might have exited and returned within the period. I won’t name the companies because I suspect all major stores and shopping malls do it somewhere or other.

As far as I’m concerned it is a disaster.- I have a small forecourt and garage – but people still park in front of my house so I can’t use them particularly at the weekends – So I have to pay to park . The Local council nor the police are interested in my problem. It could be cured by yellow lines but the council refuses to implement them. Before I could get someone to move them – now I can’t.. If they park in my forecourt I paint their windows. I have two notices Im by 60 cms (for the metric obsessors) either side proclaiming “NO PARKING” – they still ignore them. It is ludicrous that I could be fined for parking virtually outside my house because someone has blocked access to my forecourt. As I said the local council are not interested.

I’ve never been clamped, probably because I have not parked on private land without permission.

While something needed to be done about rogue clampers, I feel sorry for those who have to put up with people parking on their property. If everyone was considerate and respectful, we would not have a problem.

Previously one could park in NHS hospital car parks without paying their unfair charges, as any “fines” were unenforceable under English contract law. However, I understand that private parking companies, including those operating NHS car parks, can now pursue vehicle owners for “fines” for unauthorised or unpaid parking under Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, the same act that outlawed private wheel clamping.