Jean Gray on Shilpa Patel’s successful battle with Newham Council

A disabled driver has won her case against nine parking tickets, issued by Newham Council even though she was displaying her blue badge and was therefore parked legally.

But having seen the response from the Council, Shilpa Patel is now worried that other disabled drivers could fall into the same trap.
She has written to her MP Sir Stephen Timms asking him to take up the case.

While agreeing to cancel her parking tickets, the Council has admitted that surveillance cameras may not be able to pick up blue badges on the dashboard because they do not focus on the front of the vehicle.

Ms Patel, who lives in East Ham, alerted Newham Voices readers to the problem in a letter last month, explaining how she drives a properly taxed mobility vehicle, and received all of the tickets for parking on High Street North pedestrian zone which she needs to do
regularly in order to shop and access the post office.

In response, a Council officer apologised to Ms Patel acknowledging the ‘distress and inconvenience this has caused’. They explained that the Council has created an exemption list for disabled drivers and that Ms Patel is now on it. But she is concerned that other drivers who are not already on the exemption list will still fall foul of the system.

She said: “This issue will continue with all drivers until cameras are put at the front in every section so that they can view the dashboard for disabled badges, otherwise the unnecessary enforcement against people who are genuine users will continue.”

In part, it seems that the Council has been presented with a disabled parking conundrum following a change in practice by the national Driving and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA).

The Council officer explained: “I would also like to note that, previously, the DVLA provided the registered keeper details for Motability
vehicles with an accompanying reference number, which enabled us to identify them immediately as Motability Finance vehicles.

Unfortunately, this information is no longer supplied, and we are only able to confirm the status once it is provided directly by the keeper of the vehicle.”

But that is only part of the problem. Ms Patel said: “The reason I am so adamant about this is that people who own a disability badge may not have a car but can use the badge in any car they are traveling in. They would also face the same issues, wasting both time, energy and public money in enforcement that may not be necessary.”

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