Illegal parkers across the Northern Beaches will no longer receive parking tickets – that is, no physical ticket tucked under the windscreen – as Council moves its infringements online and in the mail from next week.
Instead, those parking illegally will have a couple of days anticipation, before receiving their naughty note in the mail.
Northern Beaches Council says effective from Monday, 4 March, its rangers will upload the details of parking offences to the Revenue NSW server, and Revenue NSW will print and send the notice to the vehicle owner via email or post.
It’s part of Revenue NSW’s Print and Post system which is being used in about a quarter of local government areas in NSW.
“This new system offers a significant cost saving to Council and our ratepayers, is more environmentally friendly and provides recipients with more information about the offence,” Council said in a statement this morning.
The statement explained that the current docket style fines provided limited information and were sometimes removed by others making people unaware of the fine until a reminder notice was sent. The administrative costs and staff resources required to send out the letters were high, they said.
The new system passes the administration work onto Revenue NSW. Council confirmed the upfront processing costs would be higher by outsourcing to Revenue NSW but the :overall costs will still be much lower than the current system.” “The system is more sustainable and efficient as it uses less paper and parking officer time,” she said.
The decision was an operational decision and did not require a vote by elected councillors, they confirmed.
“Officers will capture details of the offence as well as any relevant images onto their device. The details and images are uploaded onto the server,” a council statement explained. Revenue NSW downloads this information each day, retrieves the vehicle owner’s details, prints and posts the fine on Revenue NSW’s letterhead on behalf of Council.
“Within 2-3 days, the customer receives the notice via email (or post) and can view any images associated with the fine on the myPenalty page on the Revenue NSW website.”
Critics of the new system are concerned not being aware of a parking fine at the time of the alleged offence makes it impossible for drivers to take photo for collect evidence where they think they have been improperly penalised.
The NRMA are among those who have expressed their concerns to the media.
“While drivers who have overstayed their timed park or have parked illegally should be fined, the NRMA believes mail-only fines take away the opportunity for some drivers who feel like they have a case to contest the fines,” an NRMA spokesperson Peter Khoury said.
The Print and Post service will apply to all parking offences from Monday 4 March.
For more information on Parking visit https://www.northernbeaches.nsw.gov.au/services/parking
