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| NEWS | By KIM JANSSEN |
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TRAFFIC wardens are expected to fine Camden motorists nearly £1 million a week over the next five years – dishing out a £100 ticket every 37 seconds. Close scrutiny of contractor NCP’s deal with the Town Hall, finally released to the press this week after a four-month campaign by the New Journal, shows that it stands to rake in £32 million if it hits targets and issues more than two million tickets by 2010, clamping another 140,000 cars and towing 35,000. Even if it fails to hit targets it is guaranteed nearly £30 million. And the Town Hall can expect to keep more than £130 million of motorists’ cash over the five-year period if, as expected, NCP hits its targets. The larger part of that haul is likely to come in the north of the borough, in Camden Town, Kentish Town, Hampstead, Primrose Hill and Belsize Park, where the Town Hall will pay NCP 59 per cent more than it pays per ticket south of Euston Road. Officials insist the greater distance between cars in the residential streets in the north mean wardens cannot be expected to issue tickets as quickly there. But Tory opposition leader Cllr Pier Wauchope, who is conducting his own inquiry into parking enforcement in the borough, alongside an official Town Hall probe and a London Assembly investigation, was unhappy at the figures. He said: “The big difference between us and the Labour group is that we are prepared to question whether we should be getting this much revenue from motorists. “Of course we need to keep traffic flowing and residents need to be able to park, but from the mail I’ve been getting, so much seems to be directed against the motorist at the moment.” Government rules which ring-fence the cash for spending on roads could be relaxed next year, with Camden likely to be one of the first authorities to take advantage. |
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