Edinburgh parking: Council set to be given powers to seize untaxed vehicles

'Residents quite often complain about untaxed vehicles taking up parking spaces.'

Edinburgh council is set to get new powers to remove untaxed vehicles as part of a fresh parking enforcement contract.

Seizing vehicles whose tax has expired is currently the responsibility of the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agecy (DVLA). But local authorities south of the border who approached the DVLA to take over the work were allowed to do so and it is expected the same would happen here.

The council's current parking enforcement contract is due to expire in October 2024 and the plan is to ask contractors if they can take on the task of removing untaxed vehicles and then approach the DVLA.

Transport and environment convener Scott Arthur said: "As part of the new contract we would work with DVLA to give us power to uplift vehicles where the tax has expired. At the moment we have to rely on DVLA to remove them, which doesn't always happen very quickly. But with this new contract we should be able to removed them and impound them.

Police assist the DVLA with seizing an untaxed vehicles in Edinburgh. Picture: Kieran Murray.

"Residents quite often complain about untaxed vehicles taking up parking spaces. Sometimes a car will appear on the street outside someone's house and they'll report it . This would allow us, if it's untaxed, just to remove it immediately. So this would be a way for us to help residents."

The council has outsourced most of its parking services since it took on responsibility for parking enforcement in 1998. The current parking enforcement contract cost £7.8 million a year, which is covered by the same amount of income from parking charge notices.

But the council also gets more than £31 million from other parking income, including pay and display (£22m), parking permits (£6m) and bus lane charge notices (£1.8m). A report to the transport and environment committee notes: "The annual revenue surplus is ring-fenced by legislation for use on transport projects and improvements across the city, providing a significant portion of the council’s annual transport revenue budget each year."

The council looked at "insourcing" operations, making the council itself responsible for employing parking attendants and the managing all associated services. But it concluded such a move would increase operating costs by about £1.35m per year.

In 2020, Edinburgh was named in the top 20 areas in the UK for vehicle tax evasion, with 4,779 motorists in the EH postcode area with untaxed vehicles receiving enforcement actions the previous year, from penalties and fines to clamping, with some ultimately losing their vehicle.

And a report the following year revealed a surge in the number of unlicensed vehicles being driven on UK roads, up from 634,000 in 2019 to 719,000 in 2021. And it was said lost revenue from non-payment of Vehicle Excise Duty had soared since the abolition of the paper tax disc in October 2014, jumping from £35m in 2013-14 to £113m in 2021-22.