The right of disabled people to use designated parking spaces in Reading has been affirmed as thousands of fines have been issued for their misuse.
Each year, hundreds if not thousands of fines are issued when drivers park their cars without clearly displaying a valid disabled person’s badge.
Disabled people are allowed to park in the designated bays by displaying blue badges, which are issued by local councils.
A Freedom of Information (FOI) request has revealed that 2,030 fines for misuse of disabled bays were issued by Reading Borough Council last year, with a total of 8,111 being issued from 2020-2024.
Drivers who break the rules are issued with Penalty Charge Notices (PCNs) which can be appealed.
The amount of fines dealt for not displaying blue badges feature in the council’s Annual Parking Services Report for 2023/24.
The report states that 2,367 PCNs were issued for on-street disabled parking breaches.
Meanwhile, 96 fines were issued for off-street breaches, where a person failed to display a blue badge while parking in one of 12 council car parks.
The council has a total of 70 disabled spaces in its car parks.
A person can be fined £70 for parking in a disabled space without a badge, reduced to £35 if paid within 14 days.
It made £50,770 from disabled parking PCNs last year, and £222,710.19 from 2020-2024.
Any payments received by councils from PCNs must be used in accordance with Section 55 of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984.
This Act restricts the purposes for which a council can use any surplus income from on-street parking.
The Traffic Management Act 2004 later amended these restrictions, allowing councils that do not need additional off-street parking to use any surplus for general transport measures and other lawful expenditures.
Some examples in Reading in 2023/24 are structural road and bridge maintenance, road safety schemes and CCTV, discretionary concessionary fares and adult social care in-house transport.
John Ennis (Labour, Southcote) lead councillor for climate strategy and transport, said: “The council takes the misuse of Blue Badge parking bays in the town centre very seriously. These bays can only be used by the driver of a vehicle that has a badge by right, or who is with a person who owns a badge.
“It is completely unacceptable to use these bays without displaying a valid Blue Badge.
“It is vital the rights of people living with disabilities to park in allocated bays be respected and protected.
“For genuine badge holders who lose out on a parking space, it can have a serious impact on their daily lives.
“Inappropriate use of disabled parking bays can result in Blue Badge holders missing medical appointments, not being able to get out to buy food, or get to work.”
