Member News
By Anne McGuire MP - 2nd June 2009
The behaviour and attitudes of a minority of private car parking firms are, at best, questionable. At worst they are rude, aggressive, and potentially threatening
Anne McGuire
The regulation of private car parking companies must be improved, writes Labour MP Anne McGuire ahead of her Westminster Hall debate on the issue.
There have been a number of updates to the laws around parking on public highways, and private wheel-clamping firms are subject to specific regulation.
But when you park on private land, for example in a pub or supermarket car park, you are essentially entering into a civil law contract with the owner to obey his or her parking rules. These rules are totally up to the landlord, and if you break them a private parking company employed by the landlord can give you a 'ticket' which is, in effect, a notice of breach of contract.
The confusion over the legal basis for this kind of parking enforcement, as well as the lack of a robust and respected regulator for the industry, are both issues I am trying to address with my Westminster Hall debate on Wednesday June 3.
I should say first of all that neither I, nor I believe any of my colleagues in the House, would advocate a state of affairs in which business owners were unable to maintain propriety over the parking spaces they provide for their customers.
However, the behaviour and attitudes of a minority of private car parking firms are, at best, questionable. At worst they are rude, aggressive, and potentially threatening.
In Stirling we have had everything from poor signage in car parks to elderly constituents harassed by debt collection firms and threatened with all kinds of sanctions if they didn’t pay up quickly.
Of course all of this is equally bad for the businesses which employ these parking firms – treatment like this puts people off coming back to your shop.
This debate will hopefully help highlight the need for a better-defined and regulated industry, for the benefit of our local businesses and our constituents.
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