Consumer protection for users of private car parks

Last month the Home Office agreed to introduce legislation to ban private wheel clamping in November this year. Since I was elected Member of Parliament for Crawley in May, this is an issue I have raised both locally and directly with government ministers and so I welcome this ban wholeheartedly.

I remain concerned, however, about some private parking firms who are acting in an irresponsible way, causing unnecessary distress and cost, often to vulnerable people.

Unlike fines issued by local authority parking wardens, some private parking firms are taking advantage of the most minor infractions, issuing fines which are often quickly hiked after a few days. Examples of such minor infractions include wheels protruding over the white parking bay line, 'pay and display' tickets being blown off the dashboard onto the passenger seat and ticket machines which run fast, catching customers unaware.

The most troubling aspect of this issue is that private parking firms rely on threatening letters and solicitors to scare people into paying the parking charges. Once a parking fee is paid, many people have found that attempts to appeal the fine are completely ignored by the company. Other residents who have refused to pay these fines have found that, after a couple of months, the parking company stops harassing them altogether. One local private parking firm in Crawley has received over sixty complaints about the way they have undertaken their responsibilities.

I have been successful in applying to host a parliamentary debate on this issue and hope for a lively and fruitful discussion as this is a problem that affects not just Crawley but communities up and down the country, indeed a number of MPs from all over have already committed to taking part.

I am not at all in favour of creating some form of new, overly-bureaucratic quango to police this issue, instead I would hope to operate within the current framework to enable Local Authorities to have greater powers in the area of licensing.

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