Parking: City in Control ... Sunderland Council to terminate NCPs contract but council yet to utter 'mea culpa'

Well, as councillors voted last November to do it 'within 6 months' they are only going to be 7 months late.

However, the BBC 'Inside Out' Documentary which can be viewed here provided the scapegoats that the council desperately needed. Their Decriminalised Parking Enforcement regime in tatters with the BBC recording the fraud and cover-ups they were up against it ... then NCP's Parking Attendants were cast as the villains. This smokecreen bought time for the council who then attempted to cover-up, remove evidence and correct what they had told the Department for Transport was correct in 2003.

I nearly choked laughing at Director of Regeneration Phil Barrett's statement that 'the council would not just dish out fines it would promote awareness of parking laws.'

Well, Mr. Barrett, after all the mistakes ...

- no traffic orders for taxi ranks, wrongly marked bays, officers lying to the Department for Transport, misrepresenting the Government Office of the North East's position in response to letters in the press and covering up errors and keeping monies unlawfully derived and much, much more who is it that is going to give you the advice?

... it is clear that no-one at the council understands parking law

Last time the Council brought in Stephen Sauvain QC in an attempt to save the council's skin.

How much public money is now going to be used to defend the indefencible?

Is Mr. Sauvain up for the fight or has his advice sent alarming bells ringing?

If the regime is 'legal, robust and enforceable' as Leader of the Council Mr. Symonds keeps chanting then why not publish the eminent QCs opinion ... then we would all have no doubt whatsoever that 2m wide loading bays behind zigzags are lawful and not a threat to public safety. We would tell the Department for Transport that the e-mails telling Sunderland that their bays do not comply with the law are merely the rantings of 'mad officials.' After all, a 'reasonable man' knows that something which looks like a loading bay or a yellow line should suffice, a view also promoted by NPAS, whose adjudicators appear to be a familiar with the Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions as I am with the Chinese version of War and Peace.

So, what is it going to be?

'Mea Culpa' by Sunderland Council or death by a thousand cuts and the High Court?

The report below is the beginning of the collapse of the Castle of Lies.... and to all the other campaigners out there opposed to the draconian way that parking enforcement is being carried out and opposed to councils 'doing deals' with private enforcement contractors whose main ethos is 'cash is king' ... this is what can be done.

Now the councillors who were deceived in the first instance by council officers into thinking that DPE was 'a nice little earner' (it would not have been viable if the real cost of correcting all the lines and signs had been known and would never have been approved) ... are looking at the catastrophic political damage they have suffered and continue to suffer because of the ineptitude and deceitfulness of council officers.

There is much, much more to come and until Sunderland puts up its hands and says we are very, very sorry instead of attempting to bring in more and more 'experts' to try and prove even the Department for Transport wrong then the pain and torment is only going to get worse.

Sunderland Echo

24th September 07

A controversial car-parking contract is set to be brought under the control of Sunderland Council at a cost of £285,341.
The city's parking system came under intense scrutiny after attendants were filmed making racist and abusive comments, later broadcast in a documentary.

The programme came after a series of blunders in enforcing parking rules across the city, which led to Sunderland Council having to refund thousands of pounds to drivers after dishing out invalid fines.

NCP took on a seven-year contract to oversee parking in 2003 after the council took over enforcement from Northumbria Police.

But now council chiefs have revealed they want to axe NCP's contract, at a cost of more than £285,000, in a bid to restore the public's crumbling confidence.

The authority will have to pay NCP £73,591 to terminate the contract early, a one-off cost of £44,750 to transfer the service and £167,000 a year to run it.

In a report to council chiefs, Phil Barrett, director of development and regeneration, said council staff would not just dish out fines, they would also promote awareness of parking laws.

He also asks the cabinet to approve the move at a meeting on September 27.

He said: "New management arrangements will be required to develop and promulgate a new culture within the service to ensure that public confidence in parking is secured.

"The new arrangements will contribute to making the city's streets safer and more accessible to highway users.

"The new parking service will promote compliance rather than simply practise enforcement.

"It is proposed that the council publishes a parking charter which will inform the public in a clear and transparent way of the criteria to be used in assessing compliance with waiting,
loading and parking restrictions."

Last year, after a series of flaws were unveiled, the council was forced to hand back more than £30,000 in unfairly administered fines.

The BBC documentary that followed, alleged there was bribery, illegal ticketing, favouritism, vandalism and racism within NCP, leading to a number of dismissals.

The council aims to take over the contract from December and has said it would take on about 15 extra NCP workers to form a new parking services department at the civic centre.

Neil Herron, the parking campaigner who uncovered many of the council's parking flaws, is still appealing on a number of fines slapped on his car by the council.
He said: "The tickets which have been issued unlawfully, illegally and by parking attendants sacked for gross misconduct, must be refunded."By doing all this, Sunderland is admitting they got it seriously wrong."

Last Updated: 24 September 2007 11:13 AM