Wising up to parking fines

THE battle lines over parking in Edinburgh were drawn nearly a decade ago, when enforcers from London were drafted in to train the city's fledgling army of parking attendants.

Private contractor Apcoa was the first company to take over the duties from police-employed wardens, and wasted no time in establishing itself as public enemy number one.

The Apcoa attendants' bright blue uniforms and rather robust manner earned them the nickname "blue meanies", which set the tone for a decade of strained relationships between drivers and enforcers which has led, on occasions, to punch-ups and confrontations.

Apcoa's replacement CPS didn't garner much more love from the general public either. It presided over the record 255,000 tickets issued in 2004/05 – and tales of attendants ticketing an ambulance, hearse and blood transfusion vehicle didn't exactly help.

Neither did the suspicion – which was denied by both the council and the company – that they had been set performance targets and the firm was expected to deliver an agreed sum in fines to the council. But we are now seeing a gradual drop in the number of tickets being issued, despite a big expansion of the city's parking zones.

So are the meanies finally taking it easy, or are drivers finally becoming more cautious over where and when they park? The number of tickets has still risen phenomenally since the job was transferred into private hands – just 150,000 tickets were issued in 1997.

However, since 2005 – when 241,425 tickets were issued – the number has begun to fall, and the News last week reported that 222,169 valid tickets were dished out last year.

City leaders and the council's current parking contractor, NCP Services, put this down to an increased awareness of the parking rules among drivers.

Neil Greig, the Scottish policy manager for the Institute of Advanced Motorists, agreed with this interpretation but added that the sheer volume of fines issued was still of concern.

He said: "It is the case now that the vast majority of drivers in Edinburgh know that if they overstay in a parking bay, or park where they shouldn't, then the probability of getting a ticket is very high.

But we should not lose sight of the fact that this is still a extraordinarily high number of tickets, and I have still to see any clear evidence that issuing all these tickets is helping the traffic to move any easier – which was meant to be what this was about, rather than raising revenue."

Although it doesn't feel like it, are there fewer cars in the city centre?

The ring of park-and-ride sites around the city take an estimated 500,000 car journeys off Edinburgh's roads each year, and this is reflected in mushrooming passenger figures for Lothian Buses.

Surprisingly, the number of tickets has gone down as the net has widened on drivers, with more restricted parking areas established.

This will no doubt be of concern for the council's bean counters who, I am sure, were relying on the new zones to add to the £7 million revenue that the council gets from parking fines every year.

An added worry is that the authority will still need to cover the £4.27m cost of extending parking restrictions to suburban Edinburgh – £1m more than had been expected.

However, such monetary concerns will be of no interest to Edinburgh's drivers, who will undoubtedly welcome the downward trend on tickets issued – even if many have still to see any first-hand evidence of this.

NCP insiders have told the Evening News of a cultural shift since the firm took over from CPS in late 2006, with less pressure put on attendants to ticket.

One senior parking attendant, who asked not to be named, said he thought a number of wider factors were pushing the ticket total in the Capital downwards. He said: "I think most people feel less pressure from above to issue tickets.

"But you are seeing a lot more parking bays suspended for the likes of major roadworks and, of course now, the trams."

Regardless of the reasons for the drop, the controlled parking zones will continue to spread like ivy across the city.

Theoretically, this should increase the chance of more drivers getting a ticket as areas such as the Gyle and Leith have parking meters installed.

Tolerate them or hate them, parking attendants are here to stay and it appears more and more people are getting wise to this.