NEW laws to crack down on unscrupulous clamping firms around the country must be brought in as a matter of urgency.

Home Secretary Michael Howard tells the BEN today that he is actively considering such legislation, but that there are considerable "difficulties" in the framing of the laws.

But a story in our newspaper tonight reveals that tougher controls on clamping firms are needed now. A woman motorist on her first visit to Bolton had her car clamped after she simply drove into a car-park to turn around. A van drove across her path, blocking her exit from the Stanley Casino car-park, and she was clamped without setting foot out of her car.

Although this kind of situation is at the extreme end of the clamping problem, such anomalies are by no means unusual in the North-west. In what looks like thinly-disguised extortion, some clamping firms have forced motorists to part with large sums of money for parking on land they patrol. And in other cases, signs warning of clamping have been hard to spot and the clamping vehicles have lurked unseen until it is too late for the unwary motorist.

This kind of spider and fly entrapment must be stopped. It is one thing for clamping firms to combat persistent illegal parking on private land, but when they lie in prey for drivers who would never deliberately flout restrictions or clamping signs, they are nothing more than legalised robbers.

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