Move to cut £100 parking fines

Motorists who flout minor parking rules should get lower fines than those who commit more serious offences, an influential report says today.

While £100 penalties were appropriate for serious offenders, the report says they are too high for petty infringements such as overstaying at a parking meter by a few minutes or being slightly outside a parking bay.

The recommendation comes after a six-month investigation into parking in the capital, carried out by the London Assembly's transport committee.

Councils banked a £113 million surplus from parking operations in 2003/04, the report reveals. The number of tickets issued has soared from just over two million in 1994 - when councils took over parking control from police - to about six million. More motorists than ever are also challenging "unfair" tickets, with a record 44,280 appeals last year. Two out of three were successful.

Councils came under fire for a "lack of discretion" in dealing with complaints. Officials should issue drivers with better evidence of wrongdoing, including photographs, the report says.

Councils are also urged to carry out more thorough investigations of "fraudulent" tickets.

The report highlights complaints from motorists claiming to be the victims of bogus fines including "ghost" tickets - penalties issued after a car has been driven away.

The first a motorist knows of a ghost ticket is when a reminder comes through the post, after the 50 per cent " discount" period has expired. Another trick involves attendants allowing drivers to park in bays about to be suspended.

Drivers have even been fined after councils lifted their cars to paint yellow lines underneath.

Local authorities need to provide clearer parking signage and ensure that fine "hot spots" are frequently reviewed, the report says. Councils should also consider basing payments to contractors on performance quality rather than the number of tickets issued. Several councils are singled

out for failing to order wardens to carry out adequate observation before penalising delivery drivers. Barnet had no observation period, Lambeth had just two minutes and Newham had three minutes.

Motoring experts welcomed calls for penalties to be scaled down for minor breaches.

Barrie Segal, founder of Appealnow.com, which fights unfair tickets, said: "It is obviously wrong that someone who has paid to park legally but who has inadvertently turned up at the meter late should be hit with a £100 fine."

A spokesman for the Association of London Government, we lcomed the report's "common sense approach".