News

Drinks distributor Tradeteam is fuming after Westminster Council issued yet another ticket to one of its lorries, even though it was parked outside of its boundary and was delivering within the time zone.

The London council has held up its hands again to "inadvertently" slapping parking tickets on lorries, only days after promising to explain to civil enforcement officers (CEOs) where its boundary ends and Camden Council's begins.

CEOs have been straying into Camden Council's  territory and double-ticketing lorries making legitimate deliveries to the Northumberland Arms on Goodge Street. In this latest incident, Tradeteam only found out about the alleged offence when it was sent a second-stage 'Notice to Owner' (NTO) saying there was a charge outstanding.

According to Tradeteam's Craig Bannister, dealing with PCNs and NTOs cost the company £300,000 last year. He says it is receiving several each month for tickets it has never seen and should never have been issued.

The problem has been compounded by one of its delivery locations, Goodge Street, falling into both Camden and Westminster's control and resulting in multiple tickets being issued.

A Westminster Council spokesman told CM it would cancel a second PCN slapped on a Tradeteam truck in June and that parking attendants had been briefed about boundaries between authorities.  However, just days later, the company received an NTO for the same vehicle delivering to the same location.

Mike Bracey, chairman of the Brewery Logistics Group, says: "It's still happening. The whole thing is a mockery; it's happening again and again and again."

Westminster City Council's parking manager, Kieran Fitsall, says: "Having reviewed the issue, it is clear that one of our civil enforcement officers inadvertently issued a ticket on the Camden side of Goodge Street.

"This road holds a particular challenge in that it falls across the borough boundaries of both Camden and Westminster. At the southern end of the road, one side of the street is in Westminster and the other is in Camden.

"Therefore, in our drive to provide clarity and a genuinely firm, fair and excellent service, we have cancelled this particular ticket and are working with Camden Council and NCP services to ensure that the civil enforcement officers are absolutely clear where the boundary is when they are operating on this street."

Traffic flow in central London is no better now than when the congestion charge was first brought in, according to a new Transport for London (TfL) survey.

More than five years after the charge was launched, and over a year after the western extension began, shrinking road space in central London has caused traffic build-up to return to levels experienced before the charge was introduced, according to TfL's sixth annual impact monitoring report.