More than 3,000 cars clamped or towed in a year

9:47am Tuesday 10th July 2007

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Nearly 3,100 cars have been clamped or towed by the DVLA during the last year because they did not have road tax.

The cars were taken from the streets in Brighton and Hove.

Motorists whose vehicles are targeted have to pay a release fee of £80 and a valid vehicle licence has to be produced.

They will also be pursued for any back tax that is owed.

Impounded vehicles unclaimed after seven days are crushed.

The DVLA launched a clampdown in May 2006 which has resulted in more than 95,000 untaxed vehicles being removed from the road or clamped across the UK.

Bethan Beasley, of the DVLA's wheelclamping unit, said: "The people whose vehicles have been removed or clamped are hard-core offenders, not people who have just missed renewing their tax by a few days, but people who have shown no intention of taxing their vehicles.

"Routinely we find such vehicles have no insurance or MOT, these vehicles are dangerous and the best thing to do is immobilise them or get them off the streets as soon as possible."

The clampdown is being carried by contractors NCP Services which uses hi-tech vans equipped with Automatic Number Plate Recognition technology to spot untaxed cars that are on the DVLA's database.

Tim Cowen, of NCP Services, said: "The streets of Brighton will be safer because of this new campaign.

"It has never been easier to tax your vehicle, you can do it by post, over the phone, at a Post Office or online, so there is no excuse for not doing it."

Of the 3,099 cars either clamped or towed, three belonged to Sussex Sports Cars in Warren Road, Woodingdean.

In May this year The Argus reported how three untaxed sports cars owned by the company were clamped by the DVLA for not having tax discs.

Sales manager Casper Henderson said at the time: "It's hard to make a living in this business and this sort of thing doesn't help. It's not easy but we have to put our hands up, tax the cars and move on from this."

Back in January we also reported how 35-year Margaret Nikolli from Worthing had her car towed for not having a disc while it was parked in Viaduct Road, Brighton.

Mrs Nikolli, a former traffic warden and police officer, had reason to complain claiming that paperwork for the vehicle's registration was still in the post and that the release fee was unfairly high.

James Pritchard, communications manager of NCP Services, hit back and said: "If your vehicle is not taxed it should not be on the road.

"If the lady involved used to be traffic warden and police officer, then she should really know better."

Do you have any horror stories of being unfairly clamped or towed? Tell us about them below.