Why my £10,000 battle with the wardens should inspire us all to unite against the parking FASCISTS!
His story will enrage homeowners. A doctor who's spent years fighting attempts to fine him for parking his scooter on his own land lost a court ruling that means YOU could now be fined for parking on your own drive
Two years ago, I received a parking ticket on my scooter. Nothing remarkable about that, you might think, but here's the catch: it was parked on land I owned at the time.
That one ticket turned out to be the first step in a £10,000 legal battle, which has made me despair at the state of our ramshackle parking laws.
Along the way, I have discovered a world of greedy and despotic traffic wardens, driven by petty bureaucrats drunk on power.
In the course of my long and painful journey, I found out that - astonishingly - it can be illegal to park on your own land if it is not separated from the road by a physical barrier.
Indeed, a ruling made in my court case last week means that your driveway or front garden could now be preyed on by traffic wardens, even if it is clearly private property.
So just how did I come to discover these unpleasant truths?
In 2007, I parked my scooter outside my office in central London, as I had done many times before.
I had just returned from an emergency dash to my clinic, where I work as a doctor specialising in travel medicine.
Later, I found a penalty notice, issued by Camden Council, across its instrument panel.
At first, I was merely annoyed. The parking space was clearly private, on a Tarmac area. It had been behind iron railings until a redevelopment in the mid-Nineties, and is clearly marked on the deeds of the property that I own.
For further clarity, a sign politely declared: 'This forecourt is private property and is not dedicated as a public footway.'
Indeed, the private parking area was one of the reasons I bought the property - I need to keep a scooter there, so I can get to my patients quickly through the busy London traffic.
Back in 2001, I wrote to the council after I received a couple of tickets, and they accepted that I was parking on my own land, not the public highway.
In fact, the chief executive of the council himself wrote to me to apologise for the error.
So, naturally, I assumed that this parking ticket was also a mistake - and I duly fired off a quick letter asking for the penalty to be struck off.
After several letters to the council - and after receiving yet more £40 tickets - I was appalled to receive a letter informing me that officials had now reconsidered the matter, and would be enforcing the penalties.
Frustratingly, the council decided to thwart my right to a hearing. One by one, the tickets were mysteriously cancelled - just as the appeal date came up.
They had decided that my forecourt was part of the public footway, whether it was privately owned or not.
I like to think I am a decent citizen and make every effort not to break the law, but I now found myself in an absurd, almost surreal, situation.
I wrote to the council again, asking how far they would pursue me on my own land - could they clamp me, or come on to my property to tow my bike away? If I chained myself to the bike, would they take me too?
I addressed a letter to the new chief executive, setting out my case. She passed the buck on to the parking department.
The reply came back: the fact that the space was privately owned was irrelevant, because the council had deemed it to be part of the public footway, and therefore I must pay the fines.
Increasingly furious at the situation, I decided to argue the case at a parking tribunal.
I chose not to pay the fines, so that I would get a public hearing and a proper ruling.
Frustratingly, the council decided to thwart my right to a hearing. One by one, the tickets were mysteriously cancelled - just as the appeal date came up.
When I complained, I was told that the council could cancel tickets at will.
To me, it felt like a campaign of harassment - the tickets kept appearing, but I was denied the opportunity to challenge them.
It became a matter of principle with me to find a way of testing whether I was at the mercy of traffic wardens and council officials on my own land.
After all, I had always believed that an Englishman's home was his castle - surely I had rights.
I found a barrister to act for me at the parking tribunal.
Together, we worked on our case based on five specimen tickets that the council had somehow failed to cancel. I felt certain that somewhere along the way, someone would see sense.
At the parking tribunal, the adjudicator reserved judgment.
In his subsequent ruling, he reproduced the judgment from a previous case, which turned on the legal definition of an 'urban road' and went against us.
But this case involved a motorbike parked in a private space, with one wheel resting over the public footpath. In other words, it just wasn't relevant to my situation.
This is madness. We have given councils and petty officials too much power.
Called White vs The City of Westminster, it has since been used by other councils to justify penalising motorists parked on private land.
By now, I was angry. In fact, I was furious. More than 30 tickets had now been slapped on my scooter - ironically, a Liberty 125cc - and each one had left a residue of unpleasant sticky glue across the instrument panel.
I tried to get a judicial review - where a judge reviews the lawfulness of a decision made by a public body - but my request was last week turned down at the Court of Appeal.
The judge, Lord Justice Sedley, ruled that I did own the land - or rather, the subsoil marked on my deeds - but the Tarmac surface above was subject to public access. And because there was no physical barrier between the road and the Tarmac strip, parking restrictions did apply.
A lot of the legal argument revolved around the question of what is a road.
In my view, my front area - which goes around two sides of the building, and is the length of three cars on each side - is not a road. It does not go from A to B. It does not fulfil any normal criteria for being a road.
The council apparently takes full rights over it, but does not have to maintain or resurface it. I am obviously not as learned as the judge who applied his brain to the matter, but it seems to me that something is wrong here.
His ruling means that if you have a piece of land and it can be accessed by the public, regardless of whether it is privately owned, the traffic wardens can descend.
In effect, any vehicle parked on a private driveway or front garden that abuts the highway and could technically be accessed by the public is now fair game for traffic wardens.
They can target you as they see fit. Is that not an offence against basic justice and common sense?
This is bad law, cobbled together through precedents tacked on to various old Road Traffic Acts.
It is law made by traffic wardens and minor municipal officials at parking tribunals, rather than properly-thought-out legislation considered by parliamentarians.
Why do the council's petty bureaucrats milk parking regulations in this way? You would think they would have better uses for their time.
The reason, of course, is that parking fines make money.
Camden Council earned £22million from parking 'enforcement' last year.
More than anything, this saga reveals the arrogance of those who run councils.
They should concentrate on improving the local community rather than locking horns with people parking on their own property.
But my biggest worry is that now it seems our front gardens are not our own - unless they are fenced off, gated or chained in.
This is madness. We have given councils and petty officials too much power.
This is the end of the line in the legal process for me, much to my regret.
But I have been astonished by the positive public response to my case and the many people who have similar stories.
It is time we all started fighting back against these arrogant and faceless jobsworths.
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