New blue badge parking crackdown

Disabled drivers will face tough medical tests before they get blue badge parking permits after evidence emerged of widespread fraud and abuse.

Some 2.5 million currently qualify for the badges, which allow free parking in pay-and-display bays, at meters and on single- and double-yellow lines.

But research suggests around half of users are not entitled to the badges and as a result the taxpayer is being cheated out of up to £46million a year. Now the Government is planning measures to tackle the problem.

Many councils have been issuing permits without any medical checks and solely on the basis of an application letter. Incredibly, 16,535 badges have been identified as still being used despite the fact that their registered holders have died.

Other forms of abuse include genuinely disabled people allowing carers to use a badge, and drivers fraudulently applying to more than one council.

Badges are also often tampered with to alter the expiry date. Abuse has become so widespread that blue badges obtained fraudulently are circulating on the black market for up to £1,500.

The number of badges in use has soared in recent years. In England, 48 badges are issued per 1,000 people, compared with 37 per 1,000 people ten years ago.

The annual value of benefits to holders is estimated to be more than £100 per badge.

Under Government plans due to be announced this week, councils will be given new powers to impose checks on applicants similar to those undergone by those claiming disability benefits.

Ministers are expected to announce a new design that will make the badges more difficult to forge.

They will also say that the price of a badge will increase from £2 to £10. They last for up to three years and this is the first price rise since 1983.

A Government source said: ‘This change will be caricatured as government cuts taken to new heights – but we really need to clamp down on those who abuse the regime.’

Transport Minister Norman Baker said the genuinely needy were being hit by the abuse of the system.

‘Such are the high levels of fraud in the current system that 50 per cent of blue badge holders now find it difficult to get a parking space,’ he said.

Those who use badges fraudulently can face a fine of up to £1,000, but few offenders are caught.

Paul Slowey of Blue Badge Fraud Investigation Ltd, which investigates blue badge abuse on behalf of councils, says that in some city areas up to 50% of badges are being wrongly used.

He says the powers are there for local authorities to mount prosecutions for fraud when they detect misuse, but "historically enforcement has been dreadful".

Mr Slowey points to the rail network where ticket fraud fell after companies introduced strict measures aimed at fare dodgers.

"If the use of blue badges is enforced properly then the scheme will function as it should," he said.