UK to ban clamping on private land

gizmo555

I hope this is introduced here too!

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2010/0817/breaking28.html

Wheel clampers in Britain will be banned from operating on private land to tackle rogue operators who exploit drivers by charging “exorbitant fees”, Home Office minister Lynne Featherstone said today.

Ms Featherstone said previous efforts to curb the activities of unscrupulous clampers had failed and England and Wales would now follow Scotland which introduced a ban nearly two decades ago.

Motoring organisations hailed the “momentous” move, which will be introduced in the Government’s Freedom Bill in November and could be in place by early next year.

“Even though we have tried to make this work by licensing individuals, companies who are responsible for the setting of the fees and the putting of signage have not really responded. We keep trying to make this work but it doesn’t,” Ms Featherstone told BBC Breakfast .

The equalities and criminal information minister said private firms would be banned from clamping or towing vehicles but would still be able to ticket parked cars. Landowners could also install barriers to prevent parking, she added.

Ms Featherstone said despite a high number of complaints about clamping firms and the poor signage sometimes used to warn drivers, there had been “very, very few” prosecutions.

“Most police forces do not spend their time prosecuting clamping companies, that’s the other side of this problem,” she said.

Ms Featherstone said the Government had considered setting up an independent appeals tribunal but it would have cost £2 million plus future running costs. “It still probably wouldn’t address the heart of this problem, that it’s an industry that just hasn’t worked,” she said.

She said some firms were operating a “sort of entrapment” and an outright ban was the right answer.

More than 2,000 existing clamping licences will be revoked under the plans for England and Wales, with towing away also outlawed, as ministers act to end the “scourge” of so-called cowboy clampers. Only unlicensed vehicles are able to be clamped in Northern Ireland.

Once in force, anyone who clamps a vehicle or tows it away on private land will face major fines or even jail.

Only police or councils will be allowed to immobilise or remove a car in exceptional circumstances, such as a car blocking a road.

Private land clamping is said to be worth £1 billion a year, but has generated widespread complaints that some parking enforcement companies are extorting money from unsuspecting drivers.

In one case highlighted by campaigners yesterday, a nurse was clamped while visiting a patient and told to pay £350 for her car to be released. For every hour she delayed payment, another £50 was added to the bill.

The AA called clamping a “draconian punishment” which had “caused misery to motorists for often minor mistakes”.

Anan1

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