Parking penalties are being avoided by a property maintenance firm in London which has begun to recruit unemployed youngsters to act as ‘car sitters’. The youths wait with a tradesman’s van and drive the vehicle away should a warden come into view.

It means that a workman can be dropped off outside a client’s property, without having to find somewhere to park or risk a fine by waiting on a double yellow line or red route. The car sitter can then find somewhere to park up or double park elsewhere and return when the coast is clear.

Will Davies of the maintenance company Aspect has signed up four ‘car sitters’ and is looking to recruit more. “Because of the nature of what our engineers do it is very difficult for them to know exactly how long they are going to be in a property and cannot always quickly return to go and move their vehicle,” he said.

“Before we introduced this idea some of our workmen were picking up hundreds of pounds worth of parking fines every month and spending far too long driving around trying to find a space,” he said. “They can now get more jobs done during the day because they are not worrying about parking and the ‘car sitter’ can also be asked to go and fetch parts.”

Westminster City Council’s cabinet member for business Daniel Astaire said: “Nobody likes paying for parking or getting fined and there is nothing illegal about sitting in a car and driving around. But I have to say it’s pretty silly because we’ve got a number of ways that people can monitor their cars and ensure they are parked legally already.”

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