Wheel clamping on private land to be banned

Posted on by

Wheel clamping on private land (and towing away) is to be banned by the coalition government. We had a commitment to tackle rogue wheel clampers in the coalition agreement – and now we are able to take this forward.

It falls in my portfolio at the Home Office. Immobilisation has always had a track record of grief and misery. There cannot be an MP in the land who has not had constituents come to them who have been clamped ‘unfairly’. The complaints that have come in to the Home Office are tales of exorbitant fees, abusive behaviour, signage being invisible and so on.

In a recent adjournment debate I recall that examples were given of a disabled motorist being frog marched to a cash point in the middle of a freezing night to get cash to pay the release fee.

Of course, landowners have a right to stop people parking on their land – but no longer by clamping. In Scotland – where clamping was banned nearly twenty years ago (very successfully) landowners either protect their land by barrier methods or introduce ticketing.

Over time, everyone has tried to make this system work – but it just hasn’t. Individuals have had to be licensed – but that hasn’t stopped sharp practise. The latest thinking (before the ban) was to introduce an independent appeals authority – so that aggrieved motorist could appeal the fee etc. But that would cost £2million to set up and thereafter have to be funded by the public through the fees and just perpetuating a flawed system.

Cars that are parked dangerously on private land  – for example – blocking the entrance to a hospital or such like will be towed by the police. However, the police powers are for exceptional circumstances only.

This does need legislation and so it will be brought in as part of the Freedom Bill in November hopefully – and then come into force as soon after the passage of the Bill as possible.

0 thoughts on “Wheel clamping on private land to be banned”

  5. The banning on wheelclamping is a total waste of time effort and money, it is the government that chose to legislate it by giving licences, we have spent an enormous amount of time effort and money in doing it properly, if the government do ban wheelclamping I will have pleasure in taking the government to court for wasting my time effort and money in conforming with regulations.

    Lets be honest the only press we hear about wheelclamping is the bad press where the victim has not told the truth, the victim chose to park on an area that is monitored with private parking control, chose to ignore the signs and chose to take a chance, i ask who is the victim the landowner or the person who chose to park without consent, my theory is if their is a legitamte sign read it and dont park, Yes I am a wheelclamper and we do it properly and correctly.

  7. Suddenly all this interest in parking- even being quoted on the Today Show- yet little has been done little to address the massive inconvenience in living adjacent to controlled parking zones in your own borough. It is interesting to hear your views on national parking issues bit we would have more appreciation for your views and actions on local harringey parking.

  8. If land owned by housing associations is not defined as “public land” their residents will be adversely affected by this change. Much HA property is not adopted as public highway. (New roads / highways etc usually remain in the ownership of the HA where they are adopted.) In inner city areas the demand for parking is very strong (e.g. Tower Hamlets) and barriers are ineffective.

  9. The government should just cap charges and license the individual companies with a heavy licence fee to pay for the set up of the appeals procedure. Have various pieced of land and parking is a huge issue we use a clamping company who operate correctly. We have tried parking charge notices in the past and they just do not work. Why pass the crime and security bill to license the company and set up code of conduct and capped charges then decide to ban it totally. It’s a complete joke really. You are taking away my rights as a land owner and giving rights to illegal parkers to park on my land without consequences. The amount of people with CCJ’s etc they won’t bother paying parking charge notices. We are going to have private land PARKING CHAOS if this bill is passed.

  10. I totally agree with the comments. People who find themselves clamped have only themselves to blame for trying to avoid car park charges. As usual, those of us who always play by the rules will pay the penalty. I visit my elderly father who lives in a block of retirement flats at the end of a busy shopping street regularly and until a legitimate clamping firm was employed it was often impossible to park because of selfish parkers. That left me carrying heavy bags of shopping some distance. Anti-social behaviour is not confined to ill-disciplined youths from run down estates, it is very much alive amongst so-called ‘respectable’ people who chose which rules to obey. Sadly a hypocritical press and unscrupulous politicians condemn the former and support the latter as victims.

  11. This is a disaster for those living on small housing estates with allocated residents’ parking. Often the communal and parking areas of these small estates are run and maintained by volunteer residents’ commitees on very small budgets. This type of estate can be just a dozen or so houses and flats.

    Fancy barrier and ticketing schemes are not practical whereas clamping notices erected by licenced operators have been shown to be effective overnight in shooing off anti-social members of the public who think it’s perfectly okay to park in someone’s private parking area while they go to work or shopping. I suspect there would be an almighty fuss if I followed one of them home and parked in their garage or on their drive. It would be no different.

    This is a classic case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater in search of cheap political brownie points!

    I am not a wheel clamper but an estate resident who has suffered in the past and who is very disappointed at this decision.

  13. I have just spent 20mins e.mailing L Feathersone only to find it would not submit.
    Basis of Email was to say The Clamping Companies need regulating not banning. As I live on Development where barriers would not work. But control of parking is a neccessity.

  14. Hi Lynne

    First withdrawing support for speed cameras and now this. Jeremy Clarkson certainly won’t be travelling the world making derogatory comments about you and your friends even if both are disastrous. It works well for him you see – and other inconsiderate petrol heads.

    Anyway, whether this new ban makes sense is a different matter but judging by parking at the moment, it is likely to lead to a free-for-all on private land given that it’s a free-for-all everywhere else.

    Politics for the few again and it doesn’t sound very fair.

    What about the big stuff, the stuff that’s going to affect millions of the most vulnerable? Oh, sorry, I see George Osborne is telling us exactly what the Conservatives think of the vulnerable…. well he’s fine about them providing they don’t cost anything.

  15. While not wanting to defend the excesses of some clampers. I do think that the initial spin on the proposals to outlaw clamping have gone too far.

    The real risk is that the far more insidious practice of ticketing will gain legitimacy and lead to far more problems and issues for the motorist.

    Clamping is a deterrent and does protect the interest of land owners who want to avoid misuse of their land. Ask your self if you would think twice before parking on land where there is a clamped vehicle, or the risk of clamping. Now ask yourself what would be the position if there was ticketing. Its like the cosh and the stun gun. The ticket, the fee and the whole process of remote car parking enforcement is far more insidious than clamping. You know if you been coshed, it’s a slow reality if you’ve been stunned.

    Automatic Number Plate Recognition has revolutionised the way parking can now be enforced. There are firms that are now issuing tickets in there hundreds for short overstays. Can you remember how long you were at the supermarket 2 weeks ago?

    I do not want to defend the excesses and intimidation used by some companies and individuals but the way to deal with this is to target them, rather than ban a practice which in honesty has been singularly successful in making motorists be more aware of where and how they park.

    There is a far simpler proposal that would leave the right of driver and motorist protected while avoiding going down the far worse ticketing route. Simply make the removal of the clamp subject to the driver agreeing to pay the fee at a later date, without any uplift or increase, if paid within a reasonable time. Make the registered keeper liable if the fee is not paid and set some clear criteria for the amount to be paid and the signage necessary on a site.

    At a stroke you eliminate the biggest problem of fee uplift and give the motorist clear parameters of what is expected and the consequences of non compliance. If the signage is not clear then the charge can then be legitimately challenged. Not exactly the same if you receive a ticket through the post over a site you parked on 2 weeks ago.

  16. Perhaps Lynne Featherstone can say how those of us who are going to be adversely affected by this can make representations. There will be many, many thousands of us and I haven’t seen any consultation opportunities so far.

  17. I understand that this will only leave the police and councils allowed to clamp and tow away. I also believe that police will be able to remove vehicles from private land at the request of the owner under some circumstances. Whether this applies to councils, I dn’t know. Whilst I applaud the legislation, the cynical side of me wonders how they will exploit this new and potentially highly lucrative monopoly? If it is to be the likes of Westminster Council administering it, it seems we will be just replacing one unscrupulous bunch of highwaymen with another.

  18. Dear Ms Featherstone,

    I am shocked and outraged at your proposals to ban wheel clamping (or the threat of it) on private land.

    I have a property in Swindon, Wiltshire.

    We are a private tuition practice teaching students from children to adults in all subjects.

    The property has 4 parking spaces that are constantly used by permitted clients and staff coming and going throughout the day, so barriers are not practical in any way shape or form. We have 150 clients and staff, and to give them all keys to barriers and expect them to put them up and down every 5 minutes would be ridiculous. The threat of ticketing does not work; the very people who have violated our spaces in the past simply throw the tickets away, and it would be useless and expensive to chase them through the courts and even if we did we are still left with the recurring problem.

    We have turned up for work morning noon and night to find people parked in our spaces and even when we have asked repeat offenders not to do so, they still do. We have been threatened by many people we have asked to move on and I have had people try to punch me simply for asking them to vacate my property. All this going on remember, at a place where children are often in the vicinity.

    We had clear signs in place (big signs leaving no doubt it was private property) all over the property and still many, many people ignored them.

    Fed up with all this, about 2 years ago we employed a licensed parking control company and put up signs to say clamping was now in operation. We have not needed to clamp a single person in those 2 years and our parking spaces (that we pay rates on remember) have been left 99.9% free. We have had people parking for literally seconds whilst they post items in neighbours property or the like, and being law abiding reasonable people we turn a blind eye to this practice.

    Your proposed policy, however, will take us back to a free for all, causing me/us severe distress and torment. As usual the innocent shall suffer for the wrong doing of a few. Yes no doubt you have heard the wailing of those who have been caught and fined for parking illegally; I have never met anyone who did not moan about being fined, but after all they have done wrong.

    I do not support those clampers that abuse offenders and I realise there are problems with the system in place, but you are the government and these people should not be able to mess with you. You could legislate to apply structured fines with limits, come down hard on cowboy clampers and take their licences away if need be, land could be registered with the council and they could threaten clamping; this would also be self financing.

    There are many ways to put the system right, rather than abolishing it and leaving those of us law abiding citizens to the wrath of people who just do not care about other people’s property.

    If you do not understand my predicament (and I am sure many others who voted for you) please do feel free to come and visit the site and see it for yourself on the ground, and just how your proposed policy will let down one of your long term supporters.

    To abolish the system will be to let down thousands of law abiding property owners who are just trying to earn an honest living without threats and inconvenience from inconsiderate members of the public.

    I can not stress the overwhelming exasperation I have for your proposals and I implore you to look at it again rather than just give in to the wrongdoers, that’s both the cowboy clampers and the parking violators. Your proposed policy will play right into the hands of those who just do not give a dam for others.

  19. Letter to Mrs. Featherstone:

    Mrs Featherstone, the total Ban of Clamping Cars parked on private property is ill conceived as is their right to have the offending vehicles removed and placed in a Car Pound or Destroyed when the vehicle is untaxed.

    As the Managing Director of a Leasehold Management Company, we have whole developments blighted by people who deem the car parks to be FREE parking for all and sundry when they did NOT pay for the parking space as the leaseholders did when they purchased the property, they do NOT pay for the upkeep of these private spaces and car parks.

    If people are TOO STUPID to ignore the very large signs advising them it is PRIVATE PROPERTY and that a RESIDENTIAL PERMIT is required, we should be able to retain the LEGAL RIGHT to take reasonable action to defend our property.

    We use a responsible reliable Company to enforce our Residential Car Parking Schemes, they are a licenced company and we always LIAISE with Local Police when we are removing vehicles to ensure that if anyone claims it, they have a point of contact.

    Once the BAN is in place, developments once again will be blighted by Dumped and Abandoned Vechiles and the costs of removing them will once again fall on the owners of the flats instead of the Registered Keepers as the abandoned ones are normally not even registered.

    Either the current system needs more ENFORCEMENT AND PENALTIES against the ROGUE Operators with severe penalties and prison or certain developments such as Blocks of Flats with Residential Parking need to be EXCLUDED from the Ban.

    Before these schemes were put in place, it had become so bad leaseholders were taking the law into their own hands with baseballs bats after being threatened with violence when asking people POLITELY not to park there.. this is an absolute disgrace…!!!

  20. I have a large drive with two entrances at my home, I have a sign up advising people that they are not permitted to park on my drive or the pavement so as to obstruct the entrance to my drive and that offenders may be clamped at their own risk and cost and I charge them £60 for the release.

    Looks like I will be changing the sign to:-

    This is my home and my drive, if you park on it the owner accepts no liability for any damage caused by his 14lb Sledge Hammer!

  21. I have just watched Lynne Featherstone’s interview on BBC news. At the risk of sounding rude I have to say it was one of the most naive interviews I have seen and risks placing Lynne in the ‘politicians who live on a different planet’ catagory.

    Not all private land or car parks belong to big companies or land owners. Much is in the hands of voluntary organisations or small residents’ management companies trying to maintain their often very small estates. The resources are just not there to run elaborate car parking schemes to protect their property.

    The threat of wheel clamping WORKS and those clamping companies I have come across actually do it properly and work closely with the land owners concerned.

    For many residents of small estates this will all end in tears!

  22. I just wanted to say Thank You!

    Your decision to ban cowboy clampers is admirable and a huge victory for basic human rights.

    My 75yr old mother was clamped visiting an elderly friend, the signage was unlcear and almost hidden. Two huge guys turned up and demanded £345.00 – she had no money, nor a cash card. They refused to let her out of the car park.

    I arrived to try and help and called the police. The police were powerless. I was forced to pay the fine. We then tried to appeal – but got nowhere, there was no appeal process or anything. The clamping company had no address or phone number.

    She was scared out of her wits, the whole experience was extremely menacing and frightening.

    I am so happy the Lib Dems have made this move and hope it becomes law ASAP. The Labour Government had 12yrs to tackle this issue – and they did nothing.

    Thank you once again for introducing legislation where it was desperately needed.

    If you need to protect your private land – put a barrier up!

    Funny reading all the clampers on here complaining – if you had been honest and fair in your practices over the years (say a max fine of £100 or similar), you would not have just lost your livelihood.

    Their is no problem with parking on private land in Scotland, where clamping is banned – so there should be no problem in England.

    Well done Lynne!
    Regards,

    Mr M Wallis

  23. Sorry Demon but you are part of the problem with your micky mouse notices.

    Under current legislation you would be commiting a criminal offence if you clamped a vehicle but didn’t have a security industry licence to do so. The vehicle owner could call the police and have you arrested and quite rightly too.

  24. @ Estate Resident;

    The Law permits me to use ‘reasonable force to protect my property, since the sign was put up not a single person parked there, I think the new sign would have the same effect.

    It is MY DRIVE ON MY HOUSE and if IGNORANT PEOPLE think that it is OK to park there, then personally I think they should be shot and put out of their ignorant misery.

    As I pay road tax and a fortune in petrol duties, it is the GOVERMENT and COUNCILS issuing penalty notices and clamping cars parked on the road that needs banning….

  25. This is for Mike.

    Mike, that is a disgrace and the reasonable schemes operated by hundreds of licenced contractors do not behave in that way.

    Instead of the ban, the Goverment needs to do their job and enforce the law instead of creating more misery for 1,000’s of leaseholders who will have to ensure the misery this will cause them and the additional costs.

    At a development of private flats it it too costly and too impracticle to put in barriers, we have tried it and they just get vandalised. On one site we put in a steel gate with a lock to stop non residents using the development as a short cut, so they just smashed a hole in the fence… if you live in a City Area or close to a Town Centre or Railway Station this will be a disaster.

  26. In reply to ‘Dr Simm’

    It costs money to enforce laws. The Government tried to let you guys regulate yourselves…and you just took the law into your own hands. And now the Government has banned everything.

    You deserve everything you get. Nothing more than ‘licenced’ thuggery and extortion.

    If you had got your act together, organsised a proper independent appeals service, hired pleasant staff, used decent, well lit signage and not hidden behind bushes waiting to pounce and charge £345.00 to OAP’s – if you had done all of that, you’d still have an industry and a livelihood.

    But you didn’t. You lied, stole, cheated and bullied money from all concerned.

    Good riddance to bad rubbish I say.

    Mike.

  27. Pingback: Goodbye to rogue wheel clampers – another Lib Dem policy to become law

  28. Mike, lets get this right – I am not a clamper, I am not a clamping service, my company maintains and manages private developments that leaseholders have paid for and continue to pay for in service charges.

    Now, we tried politeness and got threats and abuse, we tried ‘Tickets’ and that did not work. The GOVERNMENT allowed Councils to RAISE Parking Ticket prices and clamping prices in order to make it a FINANCIAL deterent. The company we use to enforce the Residents Private Parking Spaces photograph the car to prove it has no Resident Permit on the Vehicle, they clamp it and then charge £120 for the removal, under the Governments Guidelines of £150.

    The signs on each development are LARGE and CLEAR and we use a number of them so they can be clearly seen by all. On developments whereby we have carers visiting elderly residents, we issue them special permits so they are not clamped, as we do for local contractors that may be working on the site, Doctors and even Local Councils.

    We have an appeals procedure and we have video evidence of people being clamped trying to rip down signs so they can claim ignorance.

    The ROGUE operators like the one you experienced need to be DEALT with by the LAW, that is why the law was brought in to register the clampers and to have a code of conduct.

    Based on this principle of banning it because some people operate outside the law is the same as saying the government will stop collecting tax because some people don’t or won’t pay tax.

    If you lived in a flat and paid for your parking space and continually came home and had nowhere to park because someone did not want to pay to park in a local railway station, I think your attitude would be different….

  29. yet again it is a case that if you cannot take to task the abusers of anything then ban it for the majority. the horror stories that arise from clamping are criminal yet clearly the government shies away from taking on these thugs head on and leaves misery for the law abiding owners of space around congested areas that face abuse of their property and physical threats every day. what good is issuing tickets if you can only trace these people via the DVLA if you are an accredited body – which costs £000’s to subscribe too?!

  30. Reply to Andrew

    Andrew, it is worse than that, in London it is estimated over 30% of cars are unregistered so how are leaseholders supposed to protect their property. In one case in Barking East London we were ADVISED by the Police to do something about the parking as so many disputes arose, in one case a Resident took a lump of wood to a repeat offenders car and smashed all the windows… guess who got arrested, fined and a criminal record!!!

    You cannot protect the ignorant from themselves, they simply do not give a damn about the rights of other people, they don’t give a damn about causing nusiance and inconvinience to others and no amount of ‘polite’ warnings will work.

    Now Westminster Council and Transport for London are GOOD EXAMPLES of why ticketing DOES NOT WORK, both are owed MILLIONS in unpaid fines, about £3 million by the American Embassy!

  31. If we are banning clamping because they are robbing rogues then surely we should ban MPs? They take my money all the time and prevent me from doing things i want. This country has gone completely to pot. BAN BENEFITS, CLAMP DOWN ON BENFIT AND DISABILITY THEIVES. Ive been clamped because i did not take any notice of the signs and now everywhere i go i check…a hard lesson to learn. This is how we teach our children. What a load of old rubbish!

  33. Reply to Christina – cowboys will not be crying they have made their money scamming people for year and what has the Government done against them, friggin nothing.

    Meanwhile, reputable companies, clampers that PAID THE GOVERNMENT to to register and abide by a Code of Conduct will ALL BE OUT OF WORK.

    People with private parking spaces will be the ones to suffer, that is HOME OWNERS, LEASEHOLDERS, SMALL BUSINESS etc etc etc….

    THE ONLY PEOPLE TO BENEFIT IN THIS RIDICULOUS IDEA IS THOSE THICK IGNORANT PEOPLE THAT THINK THEY CAN DO AS THEY PLEASE… mind you, what to you expect after 40 years of wishy washy liberalism in this country, it’s gone to the dogs.

  34. Dr Simm is correct in what he says.

    Also the government has underestimated the number of people who will feel the detrimental impact of this change in the law. They far outweigh those who have been unfairly clamped by rogue clampers who could be sorted out using current legislation. As one contributor has intimated this will probably lead to more punch ups than anything else.

    As someone who has run a residents’ management company I have experience of one small development of twelve houses which had residents’ allocated parking that was plagued by shoppers parking up and strolling into town. The residents brought in a licenced wheel clamping operator, put up plenty of regulation signs and the penalty charge was fixed at a reasonable level.

    On day one a single motorist was clamped and they haven’t had a problem since. They will now of course thanks to Lynne Featherstone and the government.

    The answer is to regulate the industry properly and not take away the only tool that residents have had that has been proved to work.

    If Mike would like to put his address up we can all drive over and park on his drive and see how long it takes for him to get fed up with it!

    I don’t know if you are reading these contributions Lynne but for many of us this will be a bad move and I hope there is still time for us to be taken into consideration.

  35. Will there be a provision to registered social landlords and other land lords to remove cars which are clearly abandoned? 10 years ago, our estate had a terrible problem with cars being dumped in the car park. It is not fair to say “if people want to protect their property they should put up barriers”. Any effective barrier scheme would be prohibitively expensive for a registered social landlord

  36. Nice one, Lynne, an illegal parkers charter.

    And if it is wrong on private land, why is it okay on public land?

  37. Dear Miss Featherstone,
    With regards to the proposed banning of clampers on private land I ask how as a private land owner am I now able to prevent rogue parkers using my land?
    I live on a private road of which 30 houses sit. We have an acute rogue parking issue and at times there is no room for residents to park. We have applied to our council for planning permission to erect gates at the front of our development and this has been rejected. Our only other alternative now that we cannot erect gates at the entrance of our road was to use clampers as signs do not work and any monetary fines are not enforceable.
    I will assume that the architects of the proposal have taken into account people in my situation and have come up with a viable alternative to protect our land rights? I would be interested to hear any suggestions that you may have.

    Regards,

  38. Reply to Estate Resident.

    You are correct, we have one site near a Sainsburys, one adjacent to a Church, a couple near Train Stations… the ONLY effective solution we found was to Clamp Vehicles because having to wait and then hand over Credit Card Details or Cash to get the car released was the BEST deterrent… on some of the smaller sites the company we use only charge £40 as it does not happen very often, on the bigger sites that need more management, the charge is £120, but as I said earlier, it is still £30 below the Governments Guidelines.

    What we need is for the Government to do the following.

    1. Licence the Companies and not the individual Clampers.

    2. Specify the FONT to be used and the Minimum Size of the font on the signs.

    3. Specify how many signs are required on a site per sq metre of parking.

    4. Specify a time of ‘grace’ of say 10 mins before a Clamp can be applied.

    5. Specify a MAXIMUM Penalty, enough to be a deterrent such as £150.

    6. Introduce MASSIVE FINES and PRISON Sentences to deal with ROGUES.

    7. Allow appeals through the same Dept we have now to appeal Fines.

    If the above is put in place, Rogues may not disappear straight away, but once they are caught and get fined £10-£20K or 6-12 months in Jail, I think they will be looking for a new career.

  39. Well done and thank you very much for this. Get the ban in place as soon as possible. And ignore the amazingly transparent astroturfing by the cowboy clampers.

  40. Chris….. maybe we can all come and park on your drive and see how you feel about illegal parking then or are you one of the ignorant with no respect for other peoples property?

    If I get a parking ticket on my car because I have ‘chanced’ it and parked somewhere I shouldn’t, I swallow it and pay up within the 14days to get the discount. If I think it is unfair, I appeal it and some I have won.

    If you park on a private development I currently manage for leaseholders and contract in a Security Firm to deal with the illegal parking, you are given ample warning of what will happen if you park there without a permit – you get clamped, it is no good you saying you never saw the signs because you could not miss them (I think they blight the estates because of their size and volume), so you have got no one to blame but yourself – you took a gamble and lost and therefore have to pay the penalty.

    Now, say for example we have to proceed with tickets, you fail to pay within 14days so it doubles to the original penalty, say £100. Then you still don’t pay, so we start adding interest (in line with the small business rate) of 8% calculated on a daily basis, then we add our administration charges, solicitors fees for writing to you, Court costs when we refer it to Court etc etc, before you know it, what might have been a declamp fee of £40-£120 is now in excess of £1,000 – you won’t feel so happy about the ban then will you?

  41. All this is going to do is give carte blanche to anyone to park on private land,pay and display car parks,hospitals etc the only car parks that are protected are council owned ones which doesnt seem right.As for ticketing every consumer forum you go on tells you not to pay as its only an invoice thats being put on your windscreen and not enforcable.Watchdog has also mentioned that you should not pay a ticket given on private land.So it sounds to me that any company operating on private land are cowboys how can this be or have i missed something.

  42. All this is, is some little mp trying to make herself big….it is only a proposal and when the priminister comes back she will be put back in her place!
    What a waste of time!

  43. We have a small leasehold block of flats near a railway station. Before we started employing a clamping company commuters were parking in our allocated parking spaces, and using us as a free car park for shopping and schools.

    We can now use our spaces, but come 2011 we will back in the same old situation. Dreadful idea, unless they bring in some other way of stopping people from just parking on private land ….

    But I guess ideas like this, without full consideration of the facts, get headlines and maybe win votes?

  45. When was the public consultation? Do the rights of a land owner not matter to the Government?
    The Government has severely underestimated the number of people who will adversely affected by this proposed change in the law. They far outweigh those who have been unfairly clamped by rogue company’s who could be easily prosecuted by The Security Industry Authority and the Police using current legislation. The only answer is to rigorously regulate the industry and not take away the only tool that land owners have had that has been proved to work.

  46. Currently I work as a parking warden at a university. The university has both ticketing and clamping for repeat offenders. Currently we have problems with the ticketing when some of the public will not state who the vehicle driver was on that day. Will this bill change this? Also ticketing is not licenced currently, woant the cow boys just switch to ticketing? If the university I work at put up barriers to control access around the campus it would create a traffic jam on the main road just off the campus. Ticketing is a fairer system but should be licenced and the vehicle owner should have to state who parked up on the private land. One final thing sometimes I have to move a vehicle a few meters withone the driver around as it is blocking access to a fire exit. Will this bill stop us from doing that?

  47. Dr Simm – your observations are exactly right.

    I agree that rogue clampers should be managed.

    As the owner of a property with allocated parking spaces for which I have paid a considerable amount, I would like to understand how the Government plan that I protect the parking spaces for which I have paid and the communal access roads on the development that I, as a resident, have a contractual obligation to keep clear.

    Perhaps if Lynne Featherstone cannot understand the position of private landowners and residents with private allocated parking spaces I will avail myself of free parking on land owned or enjoyed by her, her family and the Liberal Democrats in Hornsey. I can commute quite easily from there if I benefit from free parking.

  48. It’s a bit ironic that the legislation for all this will appear in the ‘Freedom Bill’. It will just give anti-social motorists the ‘freedom’ to make other people’s lives a misery.

    Presumably at some point Lynne Featherstone will make a comment on this Blog in response to some of the points raised?

  49. So I pay £245 for a SIA licence,won’t be able to use it now!,sort out the rogue clampers, not me. Anyone got the address of her office and I’ll park my van on her space,see how long it takes her to lose it. By the way I’ll have a film crew with me.Lib Dims more like!

  50. Judging by her twitter feed, there’s can be arbitrary cases of [I’ve made my point] ‘no need to reply’. Atrocious.