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Camden Council have fined just six motorists for falsely displaying a disabled blue badge - despite seizing 162. Blue badge fraud is rife in London with passes being sold for up to £2,000 and costing local authority untold amounts in lost parking revenue. The Audit Commission estimates each blue badge used fraudulently costs taxpayers as much as £5,000 a year. London Councils and Transport for London say lost, stolen and fake badges are increasingly being used by ineligible motorists. A new database was launched two years ago allowing traffic wardens access to a list of lost or stolen badges and issue cheats with parking tickets or have vehicles towed away. "Fraudsters snatching spaces away from the disabled" In the latest crackdown by Camden Council and parking contractor NSL and the Vehicle Crime Working Group checked over 2,000 disability passes and seized nearly 200. Six fit and healthy motorists were prosecuted for illegally using disabled parking permits and fined a total of £3,522 for abusing the blue badge system - 57 cases were referred to the Council’s legal department for further action. London Council's says fraudsters can expect a fine of over £1,000, three of the six caught were ordered by the courts to pay back a little over £700. Councillor Chris Knight, Executive Member for Environment, Camden Council said: "People who knowingly abuse the blue badge permit are not only committing fraud but they are literally snatching spaces away from the disabled and infirm.
It is disappointing that so many do not see how this can impact on genuine holders of the permit. I’m pleased that through our proactive operations we are bringing so many of these cases to court."
These cases send a clear message. If you take a chance and abuse the system we will catch you and we’ll use the full weight of the law.”
Disabled blue badges are issued to motorists with a specific disability or impairment. They can be used across the whole of Greater London except for areas where there are acute traffic and parking pressures such as the City of London, small parts of Camden near the West End, the London Borough of Westminster and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Photo - sutton.gov
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