South West Bedfordshire MP, Andrew Selous, served on the Parking (Code of Practice) Bill in the House of Commons yesterday. The Bill moved a step closer to becoming law in the House of Commons.
The Bill enjoys cross-party support, including the backing of the Government and the Labour Party. It has now cleared its second Parliamentary hurdle. If successful, it will introduce a statutory code of practice for private parking companies which will prevent motorists being unfairly treated.
Following the ban on wheel clamping in 2012, privately issued parking ‘tickets’ soared to 4.7 million last year – one every 7 seconds with a number of these issued in dubious circumstances.
Andrew Selous said “The clear majority of car park providers are honest and fair but unscrupulous rogues are undermining the whole sector with bad practice. I was pleased to support this measure. Some dodgy operators are engaging in practices such as deliberately unclear signage, fining people whist they are getting change to pay for parking and tickets being issued despite parking payment machines being out of order. Currently there is no legally binding code to prevent this.”
“This Bill does nothing to diminish the rights of landowners to earn a fair income from their land, including seeking redress when motorists don’t play by the rules. But the scales need to be rebalanced so the system is fair for all involved. This Bill, will help stamp out rogues in the industry.”
“I am delighted that Parliament took another step towards making parking fairer for motorists.”
Andrew Selous also raised the issue of a constituent who had driven into a local car park, only to find it was completely full, and had been issued with a ticket whilst driving through the car park. The ticket of course should have never been issued, even though the ticket was eventually cancelled after Andrew contacted the parking company.