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Westminster unable to stem anger over parking penalties
Page 18
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Despite an overhaul of its parking enforcement, Westminster Council is failing to be seen as "firm, fair and excellent". Guy Sheppard reports.
OPERATORS DELIVERING into London are accusing Westminster City Council of exploiting parking restrictions to raise money even though the number of tickets it issued fell last year.
Figures released by the Association of London Government show Westminster issued 715,085 penalty charge notices (PCNs) for parking last year — 100,000 fewer than in 2004-05.
However, Mike Bracey, chairman of the Brewery Logistics Group, says relations between his members and Westminster. which is the country's biggest parking authority, have deteriorated sharply over the last 18 months.
"In May 2006, it issued 550 PCNs to our members compared with 357 in May 2005," he reports. "We're now paying over £400,000 a year for the pleasure of delivering into Westminster." He adds that the city council's parking services business plan shows it is planning to increase the number of parking PCNs it issues to 746,000 next year.
Simon Knatchbull, operations director of London Linen Supply, says parking attendants make no attempt to take account of the needs of his drivers when they are delivering laundry to restaurants.
"I have videosof us getting a ticket when the vans wheels had stopped turningforaslittle as 30 seconds,he says. "Westminster doesn't seem concerned that we're repeat offenders.They're quite happy as long as we pay their fines."
But Alastair Gilchrist, director of parking at Westminster, says a reduction of more than 25% in the number of parking tickets issued since 2003-04 shows how successful the council's new'parking charter' has been: "We admitted two years ago that we'd got parking enforcement wrong and we promised to change the way we did things. Since then,Westminster has completely overhauled its service from end to end.
"We've introduced more than a dozen initiatives in our bid to he seen as firm, fair and excellent."