A reporter on London weekly the Ham & High went undercover to reveal the methods used by Camden’s private sector parking attendants, writes Dominic Ponsford.
Luke David did a day’s training with parking company APCOA and claimed that parking attendants were told to give no quarter to motorists and encouraged to issue as many tickets as possible to reach targets.
His in-depth first person piece also revealed the military-style training procedures new parking attendant recruits are put through.
After editor Geoff Martin gave David the assignment, he found himself in parking attendant school just two days after making his first telephone inquiry.
David said: “We’ve had floods of letters on this from people recounting their own experiences with traffic wardens and from others congratulating us for highlighting the issue.
“People are fed up with wardens hiding in bushes, targeting hotspots where people make honest mistakes over parking and just being overzealous, really.”
A Ham & High leader suggested that a scrutiny committee be set up to monitor private parking attendant firms was this week raised at a meeting of Camden Council.
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