What a joke! Have today received a response from the British Parking Association who basically say there is nothing they can do except to pass on details of the complaint to UKPC - well we all know where that will end up! They also said: I regret to say that at the present time we have no legal authority to control parking enforcement activities on private land and there is little we can do to help you in your complaint.
In England and Wales the law only regulates parking enforcement on public roads; however from May 2005 (??? IS THIS DATE RIGHT) anyone engaged in parking enforcement, using clamping on private land has to be licensed by the Security Industry Authority (SIA). Members of the BPA involved in this work have signed up to a voluntary Code of Practice for Vehicle Immobilising and Removals and we do encourage our Members who may occasionally be in breach of this Code to ensure that the situation is remedied. A similar code of practice has just been launched to cover issuing of Parking Tickets on private land and an Approved Operator Scheme is being developed to cover both clamping and ticketing on private land, with compliance monitoring as part of the terms and conditions.
At the present time therefore, all complaints received against members are logged and passed to them for review, comment and further action where appropriate. Your complaint has been passed to a senior contact at Director level at UKPC who investigate your case.
What a laugh! It makes me so mad as there are a few things on the BPA website such as a press release dated April 2007 saying: "Rogue companies which issue parking tickets on private land will be driven out of the market thanks to an initiative set to be enforced later this year. From October 2007, the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) will release vehicle registration information only to those companies which are members of an Accredited Trade Association."
What good is this, especially when many of these companies don't seem to comply with the BPA code of practice anyway. Its all a waste of time with them as they must have received many complaints but seem unwilling to do anything about it. I could find a number of BPAs code of contact points that UKPC haven't met - I have replied to BPA but doubt they will respond. There is no way on this earth I am paying this charge......