Information on Loughborough

Parking Ticket Validity Doubt

Posted on 06/05/2008
P. Klein

Illegal parking in Loughborough and an eforcement officer

 

The legality of parking tickets issued by Leicestershire County Council

in recent months has been questioned following revelations that the Council

failed set up a proper appeals process for motorists. According to a

rushed report to next weeks Cabinet meeting the decision to establish

Leicestershire as a special parking area for parking enforcement - then

known as ‘decriminalised parking enforcement’ was made in Dec 2006, and

came in to effect in July 2007.

What the County Council failed to do was to allow motorists the right to

appeal to the National Parking Adjudication Service (NPAS), which is

intended as the mechanism for adjudicating on Notices issued in

Leicestershire. To cover up their error a decision was taken to sign up

to this process by the the Leader Councillor David Parsons without

allowing the whole process to be discussed by a properly constituted

committee. This week the Cabinet are being asked to retrospectively*

*approve these actions. Charnwood Labour Party claim that this is yet

another example of County Hall incompetance.

Charnwood Labour Party are naturally concerned that motorists may have

been issued parking tickets without the legal right t appeal, and

condemn the Tory led authority for failing to ensure that proper

safeguards were in place before starting the new ticketing regimes.

Eric Goodyer, Labours Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Charnwood

said “Illegal parking causes congestion, and distress for all road

users, including cyclists and pedestrians. I support proper and

efficient enforcement action, but it is disgraceful that LCC implemented

this new scheme without ensuring that motorists were able to dispute

parking tickets. This whole process should have been properly debated by

the committee, and not sorted out retrospectively in this hurried and

unreasonable manner”