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I called Merton Council and asked for a statement from Merton council on the case referred to below.
I essentially asked two questions
1. Was it council policy to allow CEOs to park in disabled bays and
2. Was any disciplinary action being taken against the CEOs who parked in the disabled bay and gave the disabled user of that bay a parking ticket.
Here is their reply:
Merton Council director of environment and regeneration Chris Lee said:
"We work hard to ensure that our civil enforcement officers are as fair
as possible when they carry out their parking enforcement duties.
However, we appreciate people's feelings when they see parking officers
parked in a disabled bay and have instructed our parking officers not to
park in these bays with immediate effect."
Based on this reply I then wrote and asked the following questions:
Your reply raises more questions. Mr. Lee says ".... and [I] have instructed our parking officers not to park in these bays with immediate effect."
1. Does this mean that before they were caught out Merton allowed parking officers to parking in disabled bays.
2. Are the officers going to be discplined?
3. Also are you going to cancel the PCN that the lady was given.
Here is Merton's reply.
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1) As stipulated in the Traffic Management Act 2004, Civil Enforcement officers are exempt from parking restrictions when undertaking statutory duties. Where possible, civil enforcement officers make every effort to park within the parking restrictions and officers are requested not to park in Disabled Bays unless no alternative exists. However, if this isn't possible, they will park in a manner that causes least disruption possible.
2) The Traffic Management Order allows Council Vehicles to park in this type of bay whilst carrying out statutory duties, which these officers were, and hence no disciplinary action will be taken. As noted though we have now instructed our officers not to park in disabled parking bays
3) The car was issued with a Penalty Charge Notice (PCN) as it was parked on a double yellow line and did not display a Blue badge. Blue badge holders must display their blue badges in their car windscreen if they would like to take advantage of the parking benefits conferred by a Blue Badge as per the Blue Badge Parking Guide distributed to all Blue Badge holders by the issuing borough. Our officers have confirmed that they observed the vehicle in contravention before they parked their vehicle in the disabled bay so at no time did we deprive this motorist of this bay. We will not be cancelling the PCN.
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