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Is the new ‘Drive Away’ parking fine, recently introduced by the Southend Labour and Independent Group coalition, really for our safety - as they claim?
- James Miller
- 7 days ago
- 7 min read
Updated: 4 days ago
I read with interest several Echo letters scorning my views of the Labour and so-called Independent Group’s introduction of the newly introduced ‘drive away’ parking fine, after I had said it was just another money-grab rather than the safety measure they claimed it to be.
The Whinge
Before we start the discussion on this new fine, I must get this off my chest: I believe we are taxed, charged and fined to death with no real tangible reward for our money.
No matter what you earn, the government - local or national - seem ready to snatch it away and waste it.
I am all for paying taxes, but these days it is just becoming harder and harder.
I have felt this way for quite some time and it has perhaps clouded my judgment in regard to my opinion about this policy.
For all those in government positions accountable for the state of the country’s finances, my feelings are nothing personal.
Everyone has to work within the confines of their remit and are required to navigate their decision-making through a myriad of systems, organisational cultures, laws, competences and corruption, and it may well be the case that had those people involved not been so diligent in their jobs it could have been a whole lot worse - maybe.
It’s just somehow we’ve ended up in such a sorry state that we, the public, the resident, the taxpayer; are supposed celebrate if we get our grass cut once a year or bequeathed a new bin!
When I woke up to read how the council had conjured yet another way to claw money from us I wasn’t impressed, but to do it under the guise of school safety was even more infuriating.
Drive Away PCNs
Firstly, I do not condone illegal parking and am of course wholeheartedly supportive towards road safety measures - particularly around schools.
The idea of Drive Away fines is that Southend residents (or any driver for that matter) who park in a council parking bay will receive a Penalty Charge Notice (PCN) through the post if they drive away before the Civil Enforcement Officer (CEO) could put the ticket on the vehicle. It will also apply if a driver contravenes other traffic regulations such as parking on zig zag lines or double yellows.
With the information provided by the council we are left in the dark around certain questions:
Are drivers allowed to drop off or pick up passengers in a council parking bay?
How long can drivers wait in the parking bay before they receive a fine?
How far away can the CEO take the photo?
I have since spoken with several Civil Enforcement Officers who all slightly contradict each other.
One said drivers are allowed a minute or so window if the driver remains in the car, and others said in black and white terms you cannot use a council parking for anything other than parking - this includes pick-ups and drop offs. They did say that nine times out of ten the CEO would not fine someone, however, there is no guarantee as it depends on the person writing the ticket.
If the CEO’s are confused then what hope have the rest of us?
There is no signage around any council parking bays, as far as I have seen, that explains any of this and I can see a whole lot of perfectly innocent people getting stung.
Is it really for school safety?
Regarding the safety spin, Cllr. Terry, Independent Cabinet member for Community Safety and part of the Labour coalition, pointed out there were 44 deaths on Essex roads, but how many were actually on Southend roads caused directly from the use of a council parking bay? The answer will be none.
However, not only was safety said to be the reason, he and his Labour teammates were even more specific by saying it was for safety around schools.
Even though I was not arguing against keeping children safe, to argue against a policy wrapped around children’s’ safety was and is a difficult path to navigate. Easily mis-construed my argument could be become and so it was, particularly by Cllr. Terry.
The below are from social media and the Echo letters pages:
After sharing my concerns of the fines on different channels, I should not have been surprised when it wasn’t met with the same distain I felt given how well packaged the children’s safety argument was delivered.
Although many did indeed feel like me, there were a number of parents who were all for it - ‘anything to improve safety’ were some of the consensus’. And on this I completely understand. There are genuinely bad drivers out there and where it happens they need to be reported.
However, parents face the daily obstacle course/mission impossible of picking up the children and very few, if any, vindictively go out of their way to purposely defy the rules of the road. Unfortunately, sometimes circumstances do push people in a certain direction and cause some chaotic situations.
It’s all very well calling them selfish, as Cllr Martin Terry does, but 99.99% of parents are just trying to pick their children up and get out of there. They did not set out a plan to wreak havoc on the roads!
None of this is to excuse bad driving and that is not to say there doesn’t need to be a set of solutions to reduce the risk, but something isn’t always better than nothing and this policy could actually make things worse.
Reverse Safety
It is foreseeable the drive away fine will exacerbate dangerous driving in certain circumstances where parents, eager to avoid the CEO, spots them from the corner of their eye and frantically pulls out in haste, ignoring what is in front of them and potentially hitting a child.
In the eyes of the law, the parent will be blamed - and understandably so - but isn’t it better to avoid putting people in this position in the first place?
As someone who has to think about health & safety as part of my day job, had I performed a risk assessment this policy would not have passed. If a policy increases risk then it should be withdrawn immediately. I remain unaware of any risk assessment that has taken place.
Furthermore, parents might start parking in other places slightly further afield which simply moves the problem on.
Solutions
Regarding alternative solutions, former Independent Councillor, Brian Ayling, confirmed that back in 2019 the Policy & Resources Committee secured £250,000 funding for the Community Policing Support team. This team was designed to support and advise residents not fine or enforce them, assisting the community, and not there to add funds to the council.
Other alternatives that I am sure have already been thought of include staggering pick-up times. For example, each year group has a 10 minute pick-up gap.
The ideal solution would be a digital booking system. It would be easy to do and fairly cheap in the grand scheme of things. If the root cause of problem is the number of cars on the road at any one time then it seems logical to try to reduce the number of cars that have to be there.
This would probably solve most things, however, there is no doubt supervision is also required. Many schools already have a team of volunteers as monitors, but maybe thought could be given to have them train on the specific part of the CEO course that deals with safety.
Many suggest that parents walk or use other forms of active travel, and while that could be a solution for some, many others would not see that as feasible.
Others have suggested a school bus, but there are obvious finance implications here.
The point being is that there are many ideas that would alleviate this problem without lurching into our pockets.
The Money-grab
I felt the instant I read this policy that it had little to do with school safety, but was I right?
Had it been restricted only to schools then I may have backed down as it would be hard to argue if the council were targeting these specific areas.
However, after several encounters with Cllr Terry on social media and clogging up the Echo letters page, which included him accusing me of ‘clickbait’ and ‘popularism’, I had asked him whether this was a city-wide policy rather than just for schools, and he answered “this is specifically for schools”.
I might have left it but I thought before I shut the case down I might check if the council had published anything. A quick search of Google and the Drive Away policy appeared top-rank via the Southend Council website, where oddly enough it turned out it was for the whole city, meaning he either lied or didn’t know his own policy. It was actually in the original Echo article too, just overshadowed by the children’s safety aspect.
For clarification, this is the actual policy:
As you may have read, it targets indiscriminately across every road in the city, and being that nearly all roads in Southend are statistically safe (i.e. there are zero incidents/accidents on almost every road across Southend), and particularly council parking bays where very few problems have ever existed aside from nicks as people mid-judge the space, it cannot be possible that safety was the primary motivator - if at all.
Why fine people in areas that have never had any accidents, incidents or near misses?
Nevertheless, Cllr. Terry then willingly misconstrued my stance in further Echo letter pages that myself and Confelicity “support law breakers and dangerous drivers!”
Any right minded person would never think like this, so it is quite impossible to draw this conclusion.
He might of said that my reasoning wasn’t sound and didn’t make any sense, but there looks to have been an intent to paint a specific picture and cause specific reputational damage.
Conclusion: For safety or for money?
Park properly and never get fined - absolutely. However, this policy is unclear, lacks details as to how this will work in practice and lacks evidence to strongly support an enhancement of safety. Many may receive fines without knowing that they shouldn’t have done so and I would urge you to write to Cllr Terry for confirmation of the rules.
The vast majority of us want to stick to the rules by driving safely and definitely don’t want to receive a fine for going about our day-to-day lives without watching over our backs and feeling like criminals.
Confelicity has now unanimously voted to pause the implementation of this policy until the details have been established. From then we will no doubt take another vote as to whether we believe it is in the best interest of the residents of Southend - a vote that all Southend residents are welcome to take with us at our bi-monthly manifesto meetings.
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