May 2009

If you’ve ever over stayed your time in a car park or risked parking your car without warning signs, only to find your car clamped or even towed away you’ll know what a frustrating and costly experience it can be.  Motorists tell horror stories of cars being towed away just a few minutes after their ticket ran out, being charged hundreds of pounds to get it back and sometimes being stranded at night and forced to wait until the next day to reclaim their vehicle.  To make matters worse there is no way of challenging the decision or appealing.

Individual vehicle immobilisers – wheel clamps to you and I – have had to have a license to operate for some time.  Now the Government is looking to extend the regulations to include wheel clamping companies who operate rogue practises.

A full public consultation has opened putting forward a range of options to tackle public concern.  The government’s favoured option is to make companies join an accreditation scheme which requires them to sign up to a list of operating standards.  These would cover things like adequate signage, time between clamping and removal and the permitted level of charging.

In return for signing up to the conditions the companies would get an operating license from the Security Industry Authority.  Fail to keep to the conditions and a company would risk losing their license.

Such a scheme would create a balance between private landowners who have a right to protect their land from rogue parkers and motorists who have a right to be protected from rogue clampers.

I hope you’ll take part in the consultation and let the Government have your views.  You can access the consultation online at www.homeoffice.gov.uk clicking onto current consultations.  Depending upon the outcome of the consultation, the government would then move to make the scheme law, later in the year.