Labour Counter-Blow as Ticket Claims Escalate

Successful appeals increased under new administration

The Parking Ticket-Gate row escalated today when Cllr Bassam Mahfouz, Labour's candidate for the new Central Ealing and Acton constituency parried the punch from Conservative Cllr Vlod Barchuk (Cabinet portfolio holder for Transport) who claimed earlier this week that the large number of false tickets issued was due to "Yet another legacy inherited from the previous [Labour] Council."

Cllr Barchuk called Mahfouz's original claim "a disgraceful piece of spin."

Cllr Mahfouz said today: "It's disingenuous of the portfolio holder to wash his hands of this situation when his administration was responsible for monitoring the parking contracts in 2006/07.   During the last full year when Labour were in power (2005/06) the proportion of successful appeals were 52.6%.  That increased markedly last year under his administration to 79.9%."

He continued: "It's also worth noting that their new APCOA contract actually came into effect in November of last year, which means that half of the last financial year that the statistics refer to came under the new conditions.  The Tories have been in power for nearly eighteen months now.  It's about time they started taking some responsibility when things go wrong."  

October 3, 2007