Bexley Council issues fourth lowest number of parking tickets in London (From News Shopper)

Bexley Council issues fourth lowest number of parking tickets in London

10:19am Tuesday 16th October 2012 in News By Alan Woods

IT MAY come as a surprise but Bexley Council’s parking wardens issued the fourth lowest number of parking tickets in London last year.

A total of 50,155 penalty charge notices (PCNs) were handed to motorists between April 2011 and March 2012, less than the 54,031 issued the previous year.

It was incorrectly parking on a pavement that cost Bexley’s drivers the most, with more than 9,000 tickets issued for this offence.

Stopping on single or double yellow lines and parking in a bus stop were offences also picked up on regularly by enforcement officers.

Penalty charges generated Bexley Council more than £2.1 million in revenue while parking fees brought in £382,000 to the accounts.

News Shopper has previously reported how motorists have been stung by Bexley Council’s keen enforcement officers.

In April this year, central heating engineer Pete Skinner was shocked to find a £110 parking ticket slapped on his windscreen in Bexleyheath after correctly displaying a parking permit in his window – his ticket was later thrown out by the council.

Most recently the council voided a parking ticket issued to a coach parked on double yellow lines as the driver was helping a disabled passenger in a wheelchair on board. Of the issued tickets, just 73 per cent were paid by drivers.

The council agreed to cancel 2,685 tickets, more than half of them for what they describe as mitigating circumstances unique to a particular case.

Three-hundred were cancelled because the motorist did not commit the offence in the first place while 127 were void because the council did not respond to correspondence within the statutory time period.

The remainder are still in the process of passing through the adjudication system or the council has been unable to trace the vehicle owners.

A Bexley Council spokeswoman said: “We’re the fourth lowest borough in London in terms of the number of tickets issued - we issued nine per cent fewer tickets this year than last and only 0.82 per cent of tickets issued get turned over on appeal to PATAS.

“The surplus revenue we receive from parking is spent on council services, for example on highway maintenance and improvements.”

Bromley Council issued the highest number of parking tickets within the News Shopper area, handing out 90,180 and being ranked 23rd out of the 34 enforcing authorities.

Lewisham Council came in 30th place - one higher than Bexley Council - having issued 64,315 tickets while Greenwich Council were second from bottom in 33rd place, handing out just 35,025.

Westminster City Council was ranked highest having penalised 492,881 motorists.