Foreign vehicle drivers not paying parking fines

11:45am Friday 18th July 2008

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DRIVERS of foreign registered vehicles who fail to pay parking fines are costing a council up to £23,700 a year.

Between April 2007 and March this year only 19 out of the 395 fines issued by Gravesham Council to foreign registered vehicles were paid - a payment rate of less than five per cent.

In the same year the council issued 14, 877 parking tickets to UK-registered vehicles with 11, 457 (77 per cent) paying their £60 fine.

The council says the vast majority of these unpaid fines stem from private car users and that it's difficult to track addresses of drivers with vehicles registered abroad.

A spokesman for the council explained: "We get our address details from DVLA and they only hold the UK database for vehicles.

"Very few overseas vehicles ever pay parking tickets.

"The final recourse for us is to send a bailiff but it is not worthwhile to send them abroad to pick up a parking fine because this would cost more than the fine."

"The majority of these unpaid fines occur when drivers of private foreign registered vehicles park on double yellow lines and fail to pay their penalty."

He added: "There is a lobbying group called SPARKS which is looking to enable local authorities in the UK and EU member states to collaborate in resolving the issue of cross border enforcement of civil traffic contraventions."

Five years ago only 24 fines were issued to foreign registered vehicles with six being paid. Meanwhile 15, 248 were handed to UK registered vehicles with 12, 746 (86 per cent) being paid.

A report by the Institute for Public Policy Research which was published in May showed 15 out of every 1000 people in Gravesham are from one of eight countries which joined the EU in 2004.

The proportion of Gravesham residents from the Czech Republic, Poland, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia and Slovenia is the highest in Kent with 2,145 eastern European employees living among the borough's 116, 300 population.

Gravesham Council launched a new parking fine system in March with penalties of £50 for minor offences and £70 for parking on pathways, verges, central reservations and outside schools.

All fines are halved if paid within 14 days. Failure to pay can result in prosecution.