Cllr Roger Rigby has labelled as ‘farcical’ Bedford Borough Council’s responses to his questions on why its CCTV enforcement vehicles have been parking on double yellow lines.
The vehicles, which are always present in the town centre to prey upon motorists for fines, were shown in photos supplied by readers of the Bedfordshire on Sunday to be contravening parking restrictions.
In response, the Council said that if a driver of a CCTV vehicle parked contrary to parking restrictions then they would ‘receive a penalty charge notice if observed by a civil enforcement officer.’ This means that a fine would have to be issued by one of the driver’s colleagues.
Cllr Rigby said:
‘Readers of the Bedfordshire on Sunday were rightly irritated by the hypocrisy of the CCTV vehicles parking on double yellow lines so I asked the Liberal Democrat Deputy Mayor whether this was due to poor training, poor supervision or incompetent administration.
‘The response that the driver would be expected to pay their own fine is a farcical scenario and misses the point entirely; it is extremely unrealistic that they would ever be issued with a ticket by a colleague.
‘I was not reassured by the Deputy Mayor that he is capable of addressing this issue. He is presiding over a system in which income from fines is the be all and end all when he should focus on providing a service that is properly managed and town centre friendly.’