Southend top of parking ticket league (From Echo)

Southend top of parking ticket league

3:00pm Wednesday 28th July 2010

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MORE parking tickets have been handed out in Southend in the past year than in the rest of south Essex combined.

Figures, obtained by the Echo under the freedom of Information act, reveal 10,546 tickets were issued to motorists in the first four months of this year alone.

Over the financial year this equates to about 31,000 tickets being given out, compared to about 22,000 across Basildon, Castle Point, Rochford, Southend and Thurrock.

Southend Council says the reason is the town attracts more visitors than its neighbours and so has more parking to police.

But some feel the parking officials are still a little too strict and do not show enough sympathy or discretion when penalising local residents.

Raymond Bibby and his wife Doreen, both 64, were slapped with a £50 fine after he accidentally displayed a disabled badge upside down in his windscreen while parked in Clarence Road, Southend.

Mr Bibby said: “I had to get my wife’s wheelchair out in the road and I was getting flustered because of the traffic coming past and I just quickly slipped the disabled badge out. But I put it upside down without realising.

“When we came back we had a parking ticket, even though the tax disc states this is a disabled vehicle and has the car’s registration number on it.

“They ought to show more discretion.”

The couple of Cumberland Avenue, Southend, plan to appeal against the ticket.

Between January and April this year, 119 tickets were issued in the Southend borough for parking in a disabled bay without a badge.

As well as town centre streets and car parks, parking restrictions are also in place in residential streets.

Gaby Coello and her partner were issued with a £35 ticket for parking outside their own house in Osborne Road, Westcliff, in February.

The street is one of a number that is subject to a system where residents are permitted to park on one side during one month, then on the other side during the next month.

Gaby was expecting her first baby and thinking she was about to go into labour during the night, the couple parked their car outside their home, but on the wrong side of the road.

Gaby, 40, said: “There were no spaces anywhere near our house on the right side of the road and I didn’t want to have to walk miles if we had to get into the car to go to hospital.

“I didn’t go into labour that night, but obviously the car was the last thing our minds and when we came out the next day we had a ticket.

“I think it’s a ridiculous system.”

A council spokesman said the system had been in operation for about 20 years in streets that are too narrow to have parking on both sides.

He said: “The idea is to give everyone the equal chance of being able to park outside their own house.”

COUNCIL DEFENDS ITS RECORD

PARKING chiefs in Southend have defended the number of tickets handed out by their officers.

Council parking manager Derek Kenyon said the town was a tourist resort and large areas of restricted parking explained why they gave out tens of thousands more tickets than other local authorities.

He said: “Southend has a much bigger parking enforcement responsibility than any of its neighbouring authorities.

“The town attracts huge numbers of holidaymakers and daytrippers, and it has seven miles of seafront parking alone.”

Neil Hunwicks, contract manager at Apcoa, which runs parking enforcement for the council, denied there was a financial incentive for his employees to give out tickets.

He said: “We have been in Southend since 2001 and the number of tickets issued has rapidly declined, which means more people are parking properly.”

As well as issuing more tickets than other south Essex authorities, Southend also has a higher collection rate, raking in £281,456 in the first four months of the year. This is equivalent to 74 per cent of the tickets issued and compares to an average collection rate for council issued parking fines of about 65 per cent.

Basildon Council has collected £249,100 so far – about 66 per cent of the 10,272 fines issued in the 12 months to April.

Thurrock has collected £84,040, just 46 per cent of the total.

Rochford is owed more than £230,825, although collection rate figures were unavailable at the time of going to press.

Figures for Castle Point were also unavailable.

AN EASIER RIDE IN CASTLE POINT

MOTORISTS in Castle Point are the least likely to get a ticket with the borough’s two traffic wardens handing out just 1,140 in a year.

Taking into account weekends and bank holidays, when many restrictions do not apply, this works out at an average of three tickets a day.

Dave Blackwell, leader of the Canvey Island Independent Party, said: “I’m very surprised they issue so few tickets.

“Any time you drive around Canvey you see people parking on double yellow lines or in disabled bays.

“As councillors we constantly get people complaining about parking. A lot of residents have asked for yellow lines to be put down their streets at neighbourhood meetings but there is a worry they won’t be enforced.”

Problem parking spots on Canvey include residential streets in the town centre, outside shops at the top of Seaview Terrace and Station Road in the High Street and the disabled bays near the sea wall at Thorney Bay.

Residents living on the Saints estate, off Long Road, have complained about motorists ignoring double yellow lines at the entrance to the estate, in St Michael’s Road.

Jean Johnson, 75, of St Michael’s Road, was unsurprised to hear Castle Point has just two traffic wardens.

She said: “We get people parked on double yellow lines here quite a lot and it can get dangerous.

“I haven’t seen a traffic warden for years. When you think they’ve got Hadleigh to cover as well two doesn’t seem quite sufficient.”

In Southend, where the council pays private firm Apcoa to provide enforcement, 30 officers each issue on average 4.5 tickets a day.

Rochford’s five full time and one part-time warden issue about six a day as do Basildon’s seven full timers and one part timer.

Basildon’s Smart Car, a vehicle equipped with a camera to capture rogue motorists on film, issued 2,099 tickets while officers on foot handed out 8,173.

The figures also revealed Thurrock’s nine traffic wardens dish out an average of less than two fixed penalty notices a day – 3,839 in a year.

A Thurrock council spokesman said: “Thurrock Council officers do not have targets for the number of tickets they should issue.

“The only target they have is to ensure the streets are kept clear of illegal parking and safe for all our residents.”

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