Lichfield Backchester Lane end-of-year update

Protest

In 2022, with help of local District Council Leader, the parking operator who was causing so much grief was ultimately invited to leave the city by the new landlord of the related shopping centre. This week there was a brief whiff of that history with an 86-year-old pensioner facing bailiffs and having to hand over £2000 over 3 £2 parking tickets. The local Parking Action Group is nowsufficiently-organised to tackle this and get it resolved in a couple of days.

More effort is needed in 2023 folks...... https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/clean-up-private-parking-clamp-the-cowboys   Do please pitch in!

Grizebeck

How do you intend to resolve it in days...

Coupon-mad

We are with you, but there is no need for a petition.

It is no secret that the DLUHC is already working on re-publishing the Code which they have said publicly that they will do AFTER the necessary Impact Assessment and Public Consultation (coming out very soon).

Are your members aware of the upcoming Public Consultation and ready to respond to it?

I can't add more detail but I am on the Government Steering Group so I can tell your group that you do not need a petition.

In this month's Parking News the BPA published an anticipated timeline which I can't confirm but you may want to look at that and certainly make sure your group know what is coming (and needed) to get the Code over the line.

Snakes_Belly

This was an absolutely horrendous scenario whereby a vulnerable pensioner was confronted by bailiffs and paid over £1000.00. Called a relative when the bailiffs were about to remove items from the property. Relative paid the balance of the order.

The transgressions were similar to the case that was heard at Walsall CC this week and was dismissed by the judge a few minutes into the hearing

I understand that this has now being/been refunded and I can only assume that Excel have run scared of the bad publicity in the light of the public consultation. If the DM had wind of this they would have been all over it.

How can SRS sleep at night? 

New operators (Euro) are not much of an improvement, The car parks should have gone back to being operated by the council. This has done much damage to the businesses in Lichfield many of them being individual shops. There is also strong competition from the WM Designer Outlet and the retail park in Tamworth which both have free parking. 

At one stage I did consider renting a cabinet in the Antiques Centre in Lichfield but not any more.  

Snakes_Belly

CM. When details of the Impact Assessment and Public Consultation become available it is being posted on the FB group that was formed as a result of all the PCN's that were issued from Excel.

There will be responses as people are very angry not only as individuals that have been affected by this aggressive ex-clamper but the damage that had also been done to the town. 

Fruitcake

Snakes_Belly said:

How can SRS sleep at night? 

 

It's called slash and burn. Loot and pillage the land, lay waste to it, then move on to the next car park when there is nothing left of value.

Protest

Returning to the need to pressure DLUHC to progress the Private Parking  Regulations, the latest [Apr23] position is set out in the recent Written Reply from the Minister. From which I conclude that nothing will happen until 2024. Meanwhile motorists will continue to be bullied and defrauded and Parliament will continue to look like impotent fools. With luck maybe the second version of Regulations will appear in Feb 24, a mere two years after DLUHC's ignominious retreat.

"We intend to publish a draft Impact Assessment and launch a consultation on the issues of parking charge levels and additional fees before the Summer parliamentary recess. The consultation will seek views on the appropriate levels of parking charge levels and additional fees. It will also seek views on the evidence and assumptions set out in the draft Impact Assessment, which will then be finalised and published alongside the re-laid Code. We continue to work with industry and consumer groups to ensure the Code comes into effect as quickly as possible.”

from Deheena Davison MP to Clive Betts MP 17 Apr 2023

Why not use the existing Regulations minus the contentious £ topics, get the process working and then sort out the £ - with a clear understanding that the regulatory energy will reflect the level of £ at stake: more money = sharper teeth?  

Meantime can anybody explain why Trading Standards have no interest in the way parking operators work?

Coupon-mad

You are right with the above and thanks for spotting and posting it, because I knew that target date of the draft IA and the final Public Consultation coming out "before Summer Recess" but couldn't say here, till now!

https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/39166/documents/192661/default/

Work has continued.  It never got shelved.  Don't worry.  I am happy to say I am still heavily involved.

I have always disagreed that the rest of the CoP should come in without finalising the £ issues.

For me, all the rest of the CoP is very good but without the £rip offs robustly addressed, it is just tinkering.  I firmly believe the statutory Code is NOTHING without final Government decisions to address the 'disproportionate' parking charge levels and the 'extortionate' 'rip off' fake fees that the DLUHC's then-minister with the parking portfolio, Neil O'Brien promised.

Also, if a half-assed CoP came in (without touching the £ decisions) then imagine if a General Election interrupted that interim process, you can BET that all we'd get is the half-assed version.  Even worse, it would mean PPCs could say they are now 'regulated by the Government' and that the £170 was endorsed under the statutory regime.

And Judges would believe that...and time would move on.  Possibly a whole new Government inheriting it and not knowing enough to touch it. The fact it was meant to be an 'interim code' would be soon forgotten, and we'd be stuck with far worse than we have now because a statutory regime undoubtedly hands them yet more power.

AND if £170 became normal, even by default of a GE, as I see it, no Government could reduce it later.  PCNs will only ever go up, not down, in the future, IMHO. Therefore, It has to be done properly with proportionate levels NOW, even though it's sadly taking an extra year to get there.

That position (of £170 being nodded in by default after an interim Code gets interrupted by a GE) cannot be allowed to happen.

The power they are handed MUST be a very reduced ability to penalise people in the first place, plus a level charge that is fairer (more likely to be paid, in fact) and a ban on disproportionate fees.

I am clear: I want no added fee at all.  I can see how it has caused the rise of 'parking specialist' bulk litigation as a sub industry.  THAT MUST END.

I am also angry about the unnecessary 'London Levels'. Totally unsupported by contract law, IMHO, and £130 for not knowing to type your VRM in at some backwater Croydon gym or restaurant is plain ludicrous!  Obviously a disproportionate penalty.

I hope everyone shouts about that horrific £130 'London level' if it makes it into the draft IA (which no-one knows because the DLUHC are not saying until it is published, but they always said after the JRs that they would "make those decisions again").

So anything could happen.  Especially since Neil O'Brien moved on.

It is all or nothing IMHO.  No interim statutory Code.  And luckily, 'doing nothing' is unacceptable and clearly won't happen now because the DLUHC are committed to it so we ARE getting a Code.

Re TS:

Some TS officers do take an interest but the vast majority don't because they simply do not quite get it and (like Judge Rinder, who also failed spectacularly to grasp nor even consider s71 of the CRA 2015!) are too busy to do their homework and see the rip-off scam that we and MPs see.

1505grandad

You can bet that after the 20th April virtual aos conference all members will know how to:-

"Decipher the code":-

https://portfolio.cpl.co.uk/Parking-News/428/30/

"Scottish ministers have now told Scottish local authorities that they may set their penalty charges 

between £80 and £100."

Also look at the para titled "Achieving our objectives" in the article:-

https://portfolio.cpl.co.uk/Parking-News/428/48/

Coupon-mad

Yep.  I am not overly concerned through. If the DLUHC has listened, they know the truth.

I'm pretty sure no-one takes the deluded sermons of BPA elder Kelvin Reynolds (a religious preacher I believe) too seriously.  Not even the BPA, perhaps!

I mean look at the idiot in that last link, saying that people who get PCNs are all 'law-breakers'!  He looks like a bit of an embarrassment to me.

Umkomaas

I'm pretty sure no-one takes the deluded sermons of BPA elder Kelvin Reynolds (a religious preacher I believe) too seriously.  Not even the BPA, perhaps!

If so, how can he look himself in the mirror when members he represents mete such misery on millions?