Confused.com columnist Sam Dunn explains why MPs must crack down on the scandal of cowboy parking firms following a string of complaints.
“Going private” is usually shorthand for pricey yet superior service or goods – be it a swanky gym membership over your local council-run centre, hospital treatment, schooling, dentistry or long-term care.
But extend this list to private parking and one half of this particular pact crumbles instantly – unfortunately, it's the bit where you're supposed to bag superlative service for your premium payment.
Pay handsomely to leave your car on privately-owned land – a small select car park in town, say, or outside a leisure centre, supermarket or hospital – and you're effectively gambling in an unregulated, rip-off casino where you could fork out hundreds of pounds to remove a shiny custard-coloured clamp or to simply get your car back.
More rip-off charges and dodgy tactics
Recent statistics from Citizens Advice reveal it recorded a stonking 16,840 new parking problems in England and Wales last year – up by 12 per cent on 2009. Sadly, it also reports countless incidents of unjust and disproportionate charges against motorists who have parked on private land.
Its list of boorish behaviour includes concealed, absent or unclear signs warning drivers of potential charges; downright nasty staff hectoring drivers who refuse to pay up instantly; hard-to-contact parking staff when querying a fine; and pitiful lack of official channels to officially appeal mistakes.
Most gallingly, Citizens Advice reports a handful of drivers slapped with bogus fines for car parks they had never visited or on the wrong end of unwarranted aggression.
Worryingly, its research detailed the horror of a 63-year-old man blocked in by a private car-parking operator while he tried to execute a three-point turn. Worse, the elderly driver was then forced to give up his debit card to pay a monstrous £528 before being allowed to leave. Incredibly, the “No Parking” and clamping signs were not in place and partly hidden on the ground.
Tougher controls needed
The boss of watchdog Consumer Focus, Mike O’Connor, has it spot on when describing how private parking "should, in fact, make motorists feel secure and safe but the biggest risk people may face are the actions of the car park owner rather than damage or theft”.
It’s an absurd reality yet there's no disguising the fact that many private car park operators run riot in a self-regulated market, with – scandalously - no independent appeals process.
Although changes are gurgling in the pipeline, there's a great danger that the focus will be badly misplaced. MPs may well be in deep analysis of the Government's Protection of Freedoms Bill, which features a proposal to outlaw both clamping and towing in England and Wales, but there are anxieties that it will fail to curtail the most harmful practices.
The two biggest flaws, unfortunately, concern the two biggest worries: there are no plans to place a cap on the most exorbitant (and extortionate) charges levied by operators on hapless car owners, and there is a baffling absence of an appeals process.
Watch out for unlimited fines
Technically, there is no limit to the size of a fine you might face: since private tickets are unregulated, companies can theoretically charge what they want. Happily, about a third (of roughly 2,000) are British Parking Association (BPA) members which has drawn up a code for ticket issuing, clamping and car removal.
Although this code currently has a maximum charge limit - £125 for a clamp, £250 from the car pound – these are anyway higher than many council charges and, crucially, only voluntarily followed.
As for the absentee appeals process for dodgy tickets, it shamefully looks like drivers will have to rely on militant consumer behaviour – a refusal to pay followed by dogged persistence and resolution to take it to court (which should deter the most shifty operators).
However, unless you’re one of lucky few with enough time and temerity to stick to your guns and run the risk of a stressful potential legal action, this is no way for an industry to be run. Most aggrieved drivers won’t have the resolve to rely on such actions.
Without crystal-clear legal rules on these private parking protocols, there will be absolutely no incentive for any such operator to pay even lip service to the new bill.
If MPs fail to deal with such an aberration, this will be a great waste of legislative opportunity.
