Reasonable car park fine?

Scumhater

Where I work - a local authority works depot - employee parking is tricky. It's supposed to be via a colour-coded permit system but no-one's used it properly for years. There are more photocopied permits than genuine ones because the site manager has failed to maintain a proper user database (although she won't admit that) so most people just park if they can or try to find somewhere else if they can't.

The site manager is trying to pull everything into order, so at the moment we have a security company taking driver/car details from permit holders (genuine and otherwise) which she will then attempt to marry up with her very out-of-date list.
The upshot will be that many of us won't be given permits because there are already more staff than spaces.

We have already been told that the authority cannot afford any form of barrier parking for the site. Therefore it's probably going to have be by permit. I guess if we attempt to park there without permits then if we get spotted we'll be fined. Quite who will operate this system remains to be seen but I imagine that, ultimately, if we don't pay a fine then the bosses can deduct them from our wages. So my question is, what would be classed as a reasonable fine (if, indeed, there is any such thing)?

And I'm not saying where my permit came from (as though you need to ask :whistle:), but I'm currently weighing up the fine risk against the cost of buying/running a moped, because there will be no restriction on those.

wiogs

Unless this is a council run car park there will be no "fine" involved.

How a company chooses to organise parking for its work force is up to them but if it is just coloured permits then they will be onto a loser.

Oh and they cannot make deductions from your salary without your permission.

Marktheshark

In other words a PPC is sniffing round, with the people that work there as Shark bait as they always are.

daveyjp

I assume you are an employee of the Authority and they own the land?

If so as a Local Authority they have all the tools in the bag open to them to enforce parking. A traffic regulation order and penalties for non compliance.

However what the manager should be doing is speaking to the Council's travel plan coordinator and working out how to reduce the demand for spaces. It doesn't take many changes to get a solution which works for everyone.

Scumhater

Yes, Daveyjp, I'm an employee. Not sure who the site manager is in communication with, but I know that 'sustainable travel' is a big thing right across the authority.

The security on site at the moment is just an extension of our usual security services - a private company contracted by the authority as per the usual procurement and tender process. Whether the site manager will be able to use a PPC eventually, I don't know.

Quite honestly my colleagues agree with me - she needs to write to department/team managers for details of how many FTE staff require parking, work out a set of priority criteria and allocate accordingly. It wouldn't be a perfect solution but it would work most of the time. We also agree and accept that some of the time there won't actually be any vacant spaces - that's the nature of things and it's not as though we have to pay for the privilege.

Our employer has a perfect right, of course, to put whatever enforcement measure in place it chooses or can afford. If I were fined or ticketed for parking without a permit then I would probably accept it but only if any fine were reasonable.

The annoying thing is that this is only happening because a few managers (with red, top level permits - oooh! ) assume they have a right to park and will do so even when there are no spaces - they just double park and block the roadway so no-one can get in or out!

wiogs

Scumhater wrote: »

Yes, Daveyjp, I'm an employee. Not sure who the site manager is in communication with, but I know that 'sustainable travel' is a big thing right across the authority.

The security on site at the moment is just an extension of our usual security services - a private company contracted by the authority as per the usual procurement and tender process. Whether the site manager will be able to use a PPC eventually, I don't know.

Quite honestly my colleagues agree with me - she needs to write to department/team managers for details of how many FTE staff require parking, work out a set of priority criteria and allocate accordingly. It wouldn't be a perfect solution but it would work most of the time. We also agree and accept that some of the time there won't actually be any vacant spaces - that's the nature of things and it's not as though we have to pay for the privilege.

Our employer has a perfect right, of course, to put whatever enforcement measure in place it chooses or can afford. If I were fined or ticketed for parking without a permit then I would probably accept it but only if any fine were reasonable.

The annoying thing is that this is only happening because a few managers (with red, top level permits - oooh! ) assume they have a right to park and will do so even when there are no spaces - they just double park and block the roadway so no-one can get in or out!

They will not be able to fine you.

wiogs

daveyjp wrote: »

I assume you are an employee of the Authority and they own the land?

If so as a Local Authority they have all the tools in the bag open to them to enforce parking. A traffic regulation order and penalties for non compliance.

However what the manager should be doing is speaking to the Council's travel plan coordinator and working out how to reduce the demand for spaces. It doesn't take many changes to get a solution which works for everyone.

I wish that were true. I haven't seen a parking solution anywhere that works for "everyone"