Parking fine changes

Rochdale Council is to introduce new parking penalty charge rates in accordance with new national regulations which come into force on 31 March.

The Traffic Management Act 2004, Section 6, requires that a sliding scale of penalty charges will be applied to anyone committing parking contraventions.

Kevin Mayor, Parking Manager with the Impact Partnership - which administers Highways related matters on behalf of the Council - said: "The new national rules are part of the Traffic Management Act 2004. From now on, there will be a range of penalty charges depending on the contravention. We will move away from the 'one size fits all' approach towards penalties that aim to reflect the type of offence committed."

Differential charging means drivers could pay less, or more, depending on the contravention - the more serious the contravention, the higher the charge.

The new level of penalty charge will be as follows:

• £50 for less serious contraventions such as overstaying pay and display times (reduced to £25 if paid within 14 days).
• £70 for a contravention such as parking on double yellow lines on in a disabled bay without a blue badge. (reduced to £35 if paid within 14 days) .

Since most penalty charges across the Borough are issued for the lower level contraventions, many motorists issued with a Penalty Charge Notice (PCN) will see a reduction from the current charge of £60 to the new lower level of £50.

The new legislation means that parking attendants will be known as "civil enforcement officers". They will have new powers to issue penalty charge notices to motorists parked on zig-zag lines at pedestrian crossings.

PCNs can also now be issued through the post after the contravention has been committed. This will result in a reduction of the number of vehicle drive-aways, where motorists hope to escape from being penalised by driving off before a PCN can be issued.

Date article online: 26/03/2008