Wardens target resident cheats

It is one of the oldest tricks in the book - claiming you are a resident to get cheap parking.

But now the game is up for drivers who pose as locals to save themselves thousands of pounds every year.

Inspectors working for Westminster council are following motorists out of car parks and all the way to their front door to check whether or not they live in the borough.

Others are being watched on CCTV cameras as they arrive and leave the car parks, while the documents they submit to claim residency are being doublechecked for fraud.

Already almost £600,000 worth of fraud has been identified by the inspectors - and the hunt is being broadened to cover all 20 council car parks.

Bills are being sent out to drivers ordering them to repay their parking charges in full - with one motorist facing a massive demand for more than £19,000.

Another driver was asked to pay £17,900 - and responded by sending in a cheque for the full amount.

The crackdown was launched after the council received complaints about motorists posing as residents to get huge discounts on their parking permits. In some central London car parks, an annual season ticket can cost almost £6,000 - with savings of up to 90 per cent being offered to residents.

By claiming the discount, motorists can save more than £5,000 a year at a time. But some have been told to repay the money for several years' worth of discounts-Their permits are withdrawn and offered to genuine applicants.

Carl Powell, the council's director of planning and transportation, said: "We have found a significant number of people who have either mistakenly - if one wants to be charitable - been paying the wrong rate, or have been behaving fraudulently."

He said the rising cost of parking fees and fines - tickets now exceed £100 in central London - had encouraged motorists to seek to bend the rules.

A common occurrence is for drivers who once lived in Westminster to continue claiming residency to qualify for the rebate.

Another trick, which is said to have affected businesses in Soho, is for a commercial address to be used as a private address.

Inspectors now visit certain addresses to check on the permit holder's sleeping arrangements if the property is not registered for council tax purposes or has no occupants listed on the electoral roll.

Mr Powell said: "In some cases people have moved away. Probably at the outset they were legitimately entitled to it [the discount].

"In other cases perhaps there has been 'confusion' in the way the charging has been set up. At the end of the day, we just want to know we are receiving what we are entitled to receive. Surprisingly the vast majority are paying up."

Six car parks are understood to be at the centre of the investigation - China Town, Queensway, Harley Street, Knightsbridge, Pimlico and Audley Square. All have a number of spaces set aside for residents, with the remainder available for other drivers.

Forty-two people have been identified so far by the investigation, with the times they enter and leave the car parks being recorded. Those leaving after 5pm and not returning until the following morning are targeted, as genuine residents will tend to leave their vehicles in the car park overnight. Drivers applying for the discount are also required to live in the borough at least four nights a week.

Tim Mitchell, Westminster's cabinet member for transport, said: "It is very important to us in Westminster that we do this because we are talking about a very scarce number of parking spaces.

"We are talking in terms of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of pounds lost each year. We are very vigilant of the possibility that people will try and commit fraud by trying to get hold of residents' parking permits because they are so available."