One of the Coalition Government’s last acts last month was to order – in most circumstances – council use of what the Department for Communities called CCTV ‘spy cars’. This was to end what the Coalition termed ‘the tyranny of automated fines being issued in industrial volumes, and landing on doorsteps without warning’.
The trade body the British Parking Association (BPA) meanwhile was glad that CCTV continues to be lawful for parking enforcement outside schools and on bus stops. But, because the Coalition failed to do an equalities impact assessment for these proposals, the BPA claimed bad implications for vulnerable road users such as wheelchair users and parents with buggies crossing road junctions protected by yellow lines where councils will no longer be able to use CCTV to deter selfish parkers.
Pictured: CCTV patrol car at work in Tower Hamlets, east London.
