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A parking firm is offering people a tenner to shop drivers using a phone app.

The firm which boasts of operating car parks for McDonalds, Halfords, Tesco and the NHS is handing out a £10 commission to increase parking “fines” dished out to hard-pressed drivers.

All users have to do to cash in is take and upload a picture of the parked car to UK Car Park Management, along with its registration number.

Until now such firms have relied on employing their own private traffic wardens or installing Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) cameras.

It is the latest move by the money-spinning private parking industry which has been criticised for making huge sums from motorists over minor driving misdemeanours.

Defiant CPM boss James Randall, 32, said: “The problem is not with the app but with drivers that do not respect people’s land.

“The photo uploaded to the app is just the evidence and every one is looked at by a member of staff before a ticket is printed.”

(Image: Dave Hill / Daily Mirror)

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The company offers “complete confidentiality” to the unqualified app users who report drivers to claim £10 for every paid ticket.

Drivers are sent a letter demanding £60, which rises to £100 after 14 days without payment.

The “quick and discreet” service lets any land or business owner register online and allows them or their staff to start dishing out their own parking charges.

(Image: CMP Parking)

The RAC has blasted the scheme as a “recipe for disaster” and could lead to fights between drivers and app users photographing their vehicles.

RAC spokesman Simon Williams said: “This is wrong on so many levels it beggars belief.

“The sharp practices of parking companies are already regularly called into question with paid officials dishing out fines, but with members of the public being financially encouraged to shop motorists who overstay, it’s a recipe for disaster.

“This will cause total chaos by undermining trust still further and may even lead to public order offences between drivers and members of the public looking to earn a quick £10.”

Edmund King, president of the AA, said: “We hoped that outlawing cowboy clampers would have got rid of these sharp practices but it seems that some of the modern day highwaymen are alive and well.

“Even Dick Turpin did his own dirty work without relying on others.

“Getting drivers to do their dirty work shows the lengths that some parking companies will go to in order to get drivers to stand and deliver their profits.”

Brighton-based CPM states on its website: “Not only is the service free, you even receive £10 commission for every paid parking ticket!

“With three simple steps CPM will issue a parking ticket to the vehicle owner using DVLA data and the postal service.

“Complete privacy! Not only is the issuing process quick and discrete, CPM also operates under complete confidentiality.

“Our parking tickets and signs have no reference to yourself, all correspondence are designed to make the motorist believe they have been caught by a CPM patrol warden.”

CPM was founded in September 2010 by managing director James Randall, aged 32, and sales director Lukhbir ‘Lucky’ Gohler, aged 31.

The pair previously ran a company called Parking Control Management (Sussex) Ltd from 2007 to 2010 but this has since been dissolved.

(Image: Dave Hill / Daily Mirror)

The firm’s website states that it is used by a host of Britain’s biggest house building companies, estate and letting agents.

They include Southern Housing Group, Savills, Cushman and Wakefield, Fairview New Homes and Barratt Homes.

Other companies listed as having CPM-run car parks include Virgin Atlantic, Aviva and David Lloyd gyms.

RAC spokesman Simon Williams added: “This can only be seen as a cost-cutting move from a private parking company trying to reduce its employee overheads by incentivising the public to do the job instead.

“Surely this private parking company’s fees and fines are high enough to merit proper employees.”

Official-looking parking ‘charges’ on private land of usually around £100 are not legal fines but a bill for breach of contract.

Firms demand the huge fee from drivers who are sometimes just a few minutes late returning to their cars.

Tickets are usually followed up by letters from third party debt collection agencies threatening legal action.

CPM offers its “free” services to residential and commercial landowners by pocketing cash levied to motorists.

It is rolling out the self-charging service while still employing teams of their own private parking wardens.

They are GPS tracked and wear CCTV body cameras in case furious motorists attack them.

(Image: Dave Hill / Daily Mirror)

CPM also offers to install ANPR cameras which automatically issues fines to car owners whose addresses it obtains from the DVLA for a £2.50 fee.

The company is responsible for tens of thousands of parkings spaces across the UK at more than 1,000 sites. The include a number of hospitals.

James Randall, 32, and Lucky Gohler, 31, said Theresa May’s law change was “the best thing that ever happened to us.”

The pair are old school friends who set up their first private parking firm in 2007 when they were both aged 21.

Called Parking Control Management (Sussex) Ltd, this was dissolved in 2010 and replaced by UK Car Park Management which now employees 50 staff.

James told the Mirror: “Any old joe public can’t use this app. You have to be the freeholder or an agent on behalf of the freeholder.

“The photo uploaded to the app is just the evidence.

“Alright, this is offering a little incentive, but if someone is parking in front of a sign that says ‘don’t park here’ then they deserve to get a parking ticket.

“Everyone looks favourably on the motorist but what about the pub or restaurant owner who is getting their land abused?”

Lucky said: “Anyone who registers with the app agrees to abide by the independent code of practice.

“But the user of the app is not actually giving the ticket out.

“There is human interaction at every stage and we discard any photos that aren’t correct.

“And if you really shouldn’t park there it doesn’t matter how the ticket was given out.”

James added: “Self ticketing has been around for a while it’s just before people would take a picture on a camera and email it to us.

“This app has revolutionised things.

“Some of our best customers are pub and restaurant owners who can’t access their parking spaces because people just leave their cars there.

“There was one lady on a residential property who had someone just dump in her space.

“We can get wardens to come out, but they are not at her beck and call. Now you can take action yourself.”

Halford said it does not directly employ CPM, but some of its site owners may do.

Prime Minister Theresa May has been blamed for the law change which unleashed the multi- million pound industry while serving as Home Secretary.

Her Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 enabled private parking firms to launch civil cases against a registered keeper via the County Courts in England - even if they could not prove who was driving a vehicle.

The law spawned soaring numbers of private parking firms requesting information from the DVLA so they can chase motorists for fines.

Before then such tickets could be ignored.

It was claimed Mrs May’s wide-ranging legislation would scrap laws introduced by Labour which were “damaging civil liberties”.

Around four million records of vehicle details were handed to parking companies between 2016 and 2017 by the DVLA which pockets £10 million a year in return for them.