City council gets tough on mobility carpark abusers
Friday, 1 September 2006
From the PNCC press release: “SUPERMARKETS TOLD TO POLICE DISABILITY PARKS “
Palmerston North’s Mayor has written to local supermarkets asking them to be more vigilant about the misuse of mobility car parks.
Mayor Heather Tanguay was disappointed that supermarket representatives didn’t attend a forum organised this week by the Disabled Person’s Assembly to address the abuse of mobility parks by able bodied motorists.
She says the problem is growing and a recent survey has found that 50 percent of vehicles occupying mobility parks did not display mobility parking permits.
Mayor Heather says the City Council takes the issue seriously and issues infringement notices to anyone parked illegally in a disability park.
Last month the City Council endorsed the "Caught Ya!" campaign launched by CCS. The campaign focused on reducing the abuse of mobility parking and how the parking permit scheme assists 80,000 New Zealanders to freely move around their communities.
The City Council’s Head of Animal and Parking Services, Peter Broughton, says the Council has always taken a strong stance over the instances of able bodied drivers occupying disability car parks.
"If it’s a Council disability car park the driver immediately receives a $40 fine. We have a zero tolerance policy for illegal parking in disability parks," Peter says.
I am pleased to see that the Mayor has taken this action as I have been watching an international website recently that is campaigning to raise awareness of this issue. It has taken a novel approach and is encouraging people to take photographs of vehicles that are parked in mobility spaces but which don’t show the permit that is issued by CCS to those who need mobility carparks. I find it sad that there are so many reports on this site from Palmerston North. It is pleasing to see that (so far, and I hope it stays that way) there are no reports of illegal parking in council-owned mobility car parking spaces.
If you have been taking up mobility carparking spaces when you should not, I suggest you have a look at caughtya.org. The last time I looked there were close to 50 Palmerston North vehicles pictured on the site.
No. 1 — September 1st, 2006 at 4:46 pm
Thanks for the link. It is certainly good news to see that your Mayor is taking the issues of accessible parking seriously enough to make a press release on the topic. I can only hope that supermarket owners actually do pay attention to this.
For what it’s worth, we did receive one submission about a parking infraction on Palmerston North council owned property (see http://caughtya.org/new-zealand/2006/08/white-toyota-hilux.html). However, this particular infraction happened after hours, when wardens are apparently not at work. We have heard that PNCC parking wardens are doing a really good job. They just can’t be everywhere, at all times.