Congratulations to my beloved Croydon Council who have almost come up with a nice way to make even more money out of the hapless citizens of and visitors to Croydon.They had constructed a parking deal with European parking firm APCOA, which was supposed to come into force in November 2007. APCOA was then supposed to take over complete control of Croydon's parking services.
APCOA were pushing the council to agree to a clause which would allow them to issue an extra 20,000 tickets each year.
This would bring the total up to 300 Penalty Charge Notices issued in Croydon on a daily basis, generating a revenue of £15K a day for the company with doubtless benefits for our beloved council.
The deal collapsed in December, and the council admitted it "inadvertently" disclosed sensitive information due to an administrative error.
This sorry tale does of course not end there. APCOA are now threatening to sue the council for the collapse of the deal, and the disclosure of confidential information.
Guess who will get stuck with the legal bill?
Yes, that's right, the hapless taxpayers of Croydon.
All because the council tried to screw more money out of the residents and visitors to this blighted borough.
The question is, why on earth did they choose APCOA to work with?
See what the BBC has to say about this firm here APCOA.
Local councils, what the fark are they here for?
For whatever reason, and I suspect there are many, Nanny, in all her forms, seeks to drive the motorist and therefore most of our citizen's personal mobility (outside London and other major conurbations) into history.
ReplyDeleteI don't think the modern infrastructure, especially housing, will really stand the re-introduction of horse power and it is very unlikely that the sanitation system would, so basically one will be relatively captive. Though the full effect may not be felt for a generation.
Clearly the opportunity for cash cow grazing related to traffic is of limited duration if they succeed, hence the desire to ensure pensions are well funded before cow's udders fail.
One wonder how they will balance the books thereafter.
Window tax?
AH! Of course - that is why the building taxes assessment system is being reformed and why the HIPS concept has been pushed forward as some sort of conditioning program.
APCOA seem to be following the business model of one or two large and recognisable multi-nationals in negotiating contracts with huge potential for cash creation at low cost but with the back up that, if they fail, they still obtain enormous benefits from the failure by one means or another.
The methods outmanoeuvre some of the largest businesses in the world. Tackling a council should be child's play.
It seems we are sheep led by donkeys.
Grant
Local Nanny and indeed National Nanny seems to have forgotten that they are supposed to be there to serve us, not the other way around.
ReplyDeleteIt seems that every government organisation and every local authority are out to make money via stealth taxes. These parking fines/penalties are just another tax to keep the tail wagging the dog.
Makes you proud to be British doesn't it!!
Tonk,
ReplyDeleteThey think they are serving our best interests - that's what Nannies are trained to believe.
This is certainly not a local UK (or should I say English?) problem. As far as I can tell it is endemic in the 'western' world.
In the rest of the world people know where they stand and how much the bribes are likely to be ...
What I can never understand about these "deals" made by government and councils is starkly shown in this story.
ReplyDelete"APCOA were pushing the council..... to allow them to issue an extra 20,000 tickets each year."
Surely the number of tickets issued, large or small, should be the number of offences discovered by the ticket issuers staff, who used to be called traffic wardens.
Under this system, if the wardens caught an extra 22,000 offenders, they could still only issue 20,000 tickets.
But if they only caught an extra 15,000 offenders, what would they do? Desperately search for the another 5,000, or ticket innocent motorists?
I think we know.