The sight of a parking attendant sticking a ticket on your windscreen makes the heart sink. But from the end of next month even a ticketless car will not mean you have escaped.

Under an overhaul of parking regulations set out by the Government, a new era of “remote enforcement” will become commonplace. From March 31 councils across England will be allowed to use CCTV cameras to detect parking offences.

Drivers will not know that they have been caught until a letter arrives up to 14 days later, by which time they may be unable to gather evidence to defend themselves.

Cameras can be used only in areas where it is too “difficult or sensitive” for an attendant to operate such as a fast-flowing road or a busy junction, according to the new regulations.

Parking attendants will be renamed “civil enforcement officers” and given powers to post tickets they do not have time to finish writing before motorists drive off. Under current rules a ticket must be placed on a vehicle or handed to the driver to be valid. Wheel-clamping will largely be reserved for persistent offenders.

Ministers said that the changes would make parking enforcement “fairer and more transparent”, with greater clarity on the appeals process and what constitutes an offence.

But the AA said that thousands of innocent drivers would receive penalties from attendants seeking an easy way to meet performance targets. Councils receive more than £1 billion a year in parking fines and charges; many rely on the profits to pay for services such as free bus passes for the over-60s. Under the new rules they will no longer be able to set targets for revenue from parking or for the number of tickets that must be issued. However, attendants are still likely to come under pressure from contractors to issue a certain number of tickets to prove that they are working.

All authorities will have to copy the London system of having two tiers of penalties, with a lower fine for overstaying in a bay and a higher fine for parking on yellow lines. Authorities will have to publish clearer policies and explain how they exercise discretion when considering challenges. They will also have to tell drivers how to appeal. Many pay fines that they believe were issued unfairly because they fear having to pay a higher amount and do not realise that there is a a good chance an independent adjudicator will find in their favour.

According to the Parking and Traffic Appeals Service, London motorists won three quarters of appeals in 2006. Almost a third were not even contested. In the rest of Britain more than 50 per cent of appeals succeeded.

Edmund King, the AA president, said: “The last-minute change in the law to allow the serving of parking tickets by post if the ticket was started is worrying. We believe in real-time tickets, not extra-time tickets. The civil enforcement officer will not know if the driver is a blue-badge holder and the driver will not know a ticket has been issued. Enforcement should be about prohibiting obstructive parking, not about postal fines after the event.”

The DfT said that attendants would have to provide evidence of offences if a ticket was issued by post. This might be a photograph but some councils are planning to require simply that the attendant record the number plate and tax disc number.

Rosie Winterton, the Transport Minister, said: “Parking enforcement must be fair, clear, consistent and based on robust evidence. We want to increase public confidence in parking. Parking rules exist to help beat congestion and improve road safety. With more than 30 million vehicles on Britain’s roads, just one vehicle parked in the wrong place can cause traffic jams. It can also put other road users in danger.”

The new rules

— A penalty notice can be sent by post if the car is driven off before the warden can hand it over

— Councils can use CCTV cameras in places too dangerous for wardens

— Authorities should not set targets for tickets or profits

— Profits must be spent on improving transport

— Parking attendants will now be known as civil enforcement officers

— Lesser offences, such as briefly overstaying a ticket, will incur a fine of £80 in London (£50 outside). More serious offences will incur a £120 fine (£80)

— Tickets can be issued for parking next to a dropped kerb or 0.5m from the kerb

— If an authority rejects a driver’s challenge it should offer the 50 per cent discount for 14 more days

— Clamping should be used largely for persistent offenders. In other cases it cannot take place for 30 minutes after the penalty is incurred. They must be released within two hours

— If a driver returns, the vehicle should be released unless the clamp is secured or all wheels are on the towtruck. The driver must pay the ticket

— When a vehicle is clamped or removed the driver can be forced to pay all outstanding penalties (at present a driver is only required to pay for the latest offence)

— Authorities must publish their policies on how they exercise their discretion and should produce annual reports on parking activities

Source: DfT

75% chance of appeal success

51,484 Appeals against parking tickets issued in London in 2006

38,579 Number of appeals won

9,449 Appeals against parking tickets issued in the rest of Britain

5,341 Number of appeals won

2.5m The number of blue badges issued in Britain

50% Proportion of badges which councils say may be fraudulently used

7 million Number of parking tickets issued in Britain in 2005. 800,000 were in Westminster

£7,500 Amount spent by driver in Cowbridge, South Wales, as he challenged a £60 ticket for parking on zigzag lines near a pedestrian crossing. The challenge failed

Sources: Which?, Times database

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