I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) on bringing forward this Bill to
deal with an issue that should have been addressed sooner. It is right to harmonise across the country the arrangements and enforcement policies that have been in place in Greater London for a very long time.
Every council and every individual sees the abuses of pavement parking on a daily basis. It can be very costly: pavements can crack when cars go on to pavements; the dropped stone kerbs and footings on the pavements can be damaged; and even landscaped areas can be damaged, which has not been mentioned so far.
How can we police this in the future? A reasonable form of future policing would involve something along the same lines as a parking ticket. Provision would need to be built into the new laws that enforcement is not fielded out to these ANPR—automatic number plate recognition—processing companies, because those cowboys will move on straightaway to find another little loophole that they can exploit to the hilt.