PROBE INTO PARKING CONTRACT AFTER TV SHOCKER

Sunderland Echo
03rd October 06

SUNDERLAND Council leader Bob Symonds today launched an immediate review of the city's parking enforcement contract after revelations in an undercover TV investigation.

He also revealed that police are being handed a file on how traffic attendants made racist comments and jokes about disabled people on the BBC programme.
Coun Symonds said he would meet with NCP (National Car Parks), which has had the contract for three-and-a-half years.
That review could see the parking service taken over by the council, a new contractor or a renegotiated agreement.
As well as racist comments on the Inside Out programme on BBC1 last night, an attendant described how he vandalised a car in revenge after an argument with a driver.
Coun Symonds said: "I was disgusted and I'm as concerned as everyone else in the city about the remarks that were made.
"This city council will not tolerate racism or comments like this about disabled people from our staff or anybody else, and it is certainly not what we expect from our contractors.
"The racist remarks are being referred to the police and the contract is under review."
He confirmed he would be meeting with NCP at the earliest opportunity to discuss the contract and urged anyone to report the behaviour of attendants to the council, NCP or police.
Control of traffic attendants from Northumbria Police passed to the council at the beginning of 2003 and since then more than £1.8million in fines has been collected.
There are 17 attendants and the service has been plagued by allegations of aggressive ticketing while the council has had to refund more than £60,000 of fines after loopholes were exposed.
NCP spokesman Tim Cowen said it was taking the programme's footage extremely seriously and launched an immediate investigation into the conduct of the attendants.
He said: "As an employer we cannot condone the language used in the programme, but it was not clear the level of entrapment used.
"The BBC refused to show us any footage of it and we are deeply suspicious about the way it was compiled and it was riddled with mistakes.
"He said an allegation of tyre slashing may simply just have been "silly bravado" and added:
"Whether the attendant actually slashed them is another matter as there is no record of a complaint to the police.
"Nevertheless, we cannot condone racist comments or those about people with disabilities and we're investigating those."
The BBC said: "We set out to ask some serious questions about the state of parking in Sunderland."

D-Day for parking protester Neil
A CAMPAIGNER who has waged a one-man war on parking attendants today gets his chance to challenge the city's parking laws.
Neil Herron has exposed serious flaws in the city's parking regulations over the last 18 months and helped drivers claw back tens of thousands of pounds in fines issued incorrectly. For two years, he has deliberately collected parking tickets in an attempt to expose the fact that Sunderland Council and NCP were acting unlawfully but, Mr Herron claims, the council have always dropped the cases and cancelled the tickets.
Today Mr Herron's appeal against 26 tickets will be heard by National Parking Adjudicator Andrew Keenan at a public hearing at Sunderland Central Library in Fawcett Street.
Sunderland City Council has instructed barrister Stephen Sauvain QC to handle the case.
No other local authority has ever taken such steps for a £60 parking ticket appeal, said Mr Herron.
To date the campaign has forced the council to refund more than £60,000 to motorists wrongly fined.
Neil Herron said: "We offered to sit down with the council to highlight the massive flaws in their regime but we were dismissed with a contemptuous arrogance. We were forced to go public.
"Hopefully, the hearing will allow a full public airing of the errors that still exist in what has become the biggest parking shambles in the country."