Locals and the press are prone to hyperbole when they go on a rant about parking, traffic, temporary lights, or even our lovely new crossings, though I object too mainly on account of their garishness. Mayhem, chaos, anarchy in our sleepy town? Well not really, not even the nightlife reaches such levels, but I thought I would use a provocation to attract attention as I’m not entirely immune from a bit of exaggeration either.
So, have you ever wondered what the level of parking offences are in your street or district, postcode or ward? Well it seems you can’t get this info. I asked Police Scotland to supply some figures via What Do They Know, an online Freedom of Information service offered free c/o MySociety, having failed to impress colleagues on the CAPP committee that evidence or stats are central to informed local decision making.
I sought a breakdown of tickets issued by town, district and or ward in the East Lothian area by type/category, only to find that the computer says no and does not record such detail. Apparently the only way to provide such detail is to manually sift through all parking tickets issued, count them, presumably using a 5 bar gate or abacus. Granted that the costs of compliance with my request would be excessive, under Section 12 of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act, it does seem to me that in this day and age of big data, and the ability to monitor whole country’s telephone calls for longish periods of time, the Police would have invested in this basic kit. I wonder how small a number they would be prepared to sift through and crowd source it with multiple FoIs. Not sure that would be in the spirit of things, so am not recommending it.
But what is the above chart telling us? It looks like ticketing by our wardens is firmly on the decline across the Lothians, with on average more than 57% less tickets issued across the Local Authority areas since 2008. In 2013 it has taken a nose dive in East and Mid Lothian (I’ve projected the figures from 30 Sep forward), but I am betting that Mid Lothian drivers are happiest, with parking fines unlikely to reach 300 by the end of the year, a staggering fall from almost 2,400 a few years before. No doubt drivers in East Lothian are happier too as fines are almost 60% lower over the period. I suspect that number of fines is correlated with effort and the number of wardens on the beat. Mid Lothian drivers are as prone as the rest to take the law into their own hands when it comes to parking.
So it will be a brave administration that adopts the new parking enforcement powers heading their way, when Police Scotland cut services. I can’t see headlines like “ELC restores peace and parking fines to 2008 levels”. Quite the opposite, there will be a predictable outbreak of synthetic rage followed by carefully orchestrated online campaigns to besmirch the reputation of wardens and greedy councils lining their pockets. What is interesting though is that between £166k and £277k could potentially be raised, if we take the 2008 levels as a benchmark. That is a theoretical figure based on the levy between £60 and £100. To make the wardening economic and pay for itself, I guess the potential revenue has to be even higher, and higher than the theoretical maximum as many will not pay. This means a much more aggressive regime than before and I predict many more unhappy East Lothian drivers.
And to top it all apparently the parking chaos WILL come to a street near you, as there will be an interregnum period when no wardening services will be provided and only ‘dangerous’ parking enforced by the police. Mayhem will ensue, no doubt. Vigilantes will take matters into the own hands and tear down fences to allow motorists to take over empty lots. They will train little old ladies to assault you for parking in front of their bungalows, which already have ample parking spaces for 2 or 3 cars on the perfectly manicured pink gravel. Locals will sport stickers on the back of their cars that quip “East Lothian, probably the best parking in the world” (aping the famous 1980s Carlsburg advert) and park outside their home at any time of the day. Anarchy? Not really. More perhaps a research opportunity for human behaviouralists and free market economists who will hypothesise that people will leave their cars at home, fearful of losing their precious parking space.