Drivers face parking tickets despite strike

DRIVERS are being warned they will still be ticketed for parking illegally during tomorrow's strike by attendants.

Parking operator NCP today said it plans to have a normal level of on-street deployment during the one-day strike over pay and conditions.

Union leaders are aiming to ensure no parking tickets are issued during the action, which also includes a potentially disruptive overtime ban.

The strike is a bid to force a big increase in the basic pay of the lowest paid attendants who earn around 11,500 a year.

They have refused an offer of 4.4 per cent.

A picket will be staged outside the NCP depot off Broughton Street, where the attendants are based, in an effort to persuade non-union members to join the walk-out.

The Transport and General Workers' Union (T&G) said 60 per cent of the attendants, who are employed privately by NCP, are members of the T&G and were expected to join the strike. Tim Cowen, director of communications at NCP Services, said: "We remain confident that we will be providing an effective enforcement service in Edinburgh on Wednesday.

"This action has only been supported by a minority of staff on the contract and we have been able to plan for a normal level of on-street deployment.

"The work our parking attendants do in the city is important, it prevents congestion building up, allows businesses to get deliveries into their shops and ensures that disabled people can use their cars and the spaces set aside for them.

"Attendants will be out in Edinburgh doing this work as normal on Wednesday and motorists who park illegally should be aware that they are likely to receive penalty charge notices."

He added: "We will continue to work with the union towards an amicable settlement of this dispute."

Mr Cowen said the company had tried to resolve the issue amicably, and insisted only a minority of the workforce had voted in favour of the strike.

A ballot of T&G members found 82.1 per cent were in favour of the strike, while 84.1 per cent voted for action short of a strike.

They rejected a pay offer by NCP, which would take the lowest paid attendants to a basic wage of just under 12,000 a year.

The T&G is pushing for a minimum wage of almost 14,000, rising to 18,000 within five years.

Nobody from the union was available for comment.

NCP took over the council's parking contract from CPS in December last year. The five-year contract will run until 2011. NCP issues around 250,000 tickets, worth a total of 7 million, each year. It employs around 110 parking attendants, of whom around 80 are on duty each day.

It is understood that CPS had offered to pay staff 7.50 an hour when it made an unsuccessful bid to retain the contract.

A council spokeswoman said: "Parking regulations will still be enforced tomorrow so we urge people to continue to park correctly and observe signs and lines."