Wardens told: go soft on drivers

In an acknowledgment that drivers' complaints about parking enforcement "may be merited", Alistair Darling, the Secretary of State for Transport, has written to MPs on the Transport Select Committee criticising over-zealous practices.

The 20-page memo, which emerged last night, also says there is little information about where revenues from parking penalties, which passed £1bn in 2003-04, end up and that this can lead to the impression that local authorities are only policing parking as a money-making exercise.