Brent Council CCTV car hogs disabled parking bay in Queen’s Park

The vehicle was captured shamelessly parked in the space despite being surrounding by empty bays in Milman Road, Queen’s Park.

The image was uploaded on social networking website Twitter by @riseguide who said: “This isn’t right... Parking in a disabled bay”

It quickly attracted criticism from other tweeters amidst claims of hypocrisy from the council.

While a non-blue badge holder would have been fined on the spot it would have been interesting to see if a traffic warden would have slapped a ticket on the vehicle.

After all the council would hardly fine themselves would they?

@jrendell tweeted: “Shameless. Will they issue themselves a ticket? Why not? #Racket”

The CCTV cars were previously used to catch out motorists committing parking offences until it was outlawed in 2014 at a cost of £2.2million in lost revenue according to the council.

Before the changes they were often photographed parked on double yellow lines or dangerously.

Since then the vehicles have been used to snare illegal dumpers.

A spokeswoman for Brent Council said they were investigating the incident.

She added: “Council CCTV cars are allowed to park in a disabled bay or on yellow lines temporarily while actively engaged in enforcement, but are instructed to do so as a last resort.

“They should look for alternative locations first, for instance ordinary resident bays, and are also expected to move on as soon as the task is completed or if a disabled driver needs to park. This is the position nationally and is permitted by law.

“If a resident is concerned that a CCTV vehicle has occupied a disabled bay for some time, we would always investigate to check that these instructions have not been breached.”