Vehicle Crime
Cleaner Safer Greener Communities: Removing Nuisance Vehicles
This document sets out proposals for addressing the increasing number of nuisance vehicles and outlines the Government's strategy for creating greener safer communities.
Title: Cleaner Safer Greener Communities: Removing Nuisance Vehicles
Author: Office of the Deputy Prime Minister
Date published: November 2004
Number of pages: 34
Availability: Download report 
PDF 178 Kb
Nuisance vehicles are those that have no registered keeper, are abandoned or are not displaying a current tax disc. They have increased in numbers significantly over the last 5 years.
Nuisance vehicles hamper the Government's drive towards creating sustainable communities. They degrade the quality of the local environment, attract crime and anti-social behaviour and are the result of irresponsible motoring.
What has been done so far?
The Government has introduced:
stronger measures to make people pay for vehicle crimes
wheelclamping of unlicensed vehicles
measures to speed up vehicle removal by reducing the notice period before vehicles can be removed and extending police powers
piloted new approaches, including support for Operation Cubit partnerships and Operation Scrap-it across London, vehicle arson reduction schemes, car clearance schemes and Local Public Service Agreements
proposals that from 2007 vehicle manufacturers become responsible for providing 'free take-back' of End of Life Vehicles
reviewed how to cut the current high level of uninsured driving
introduced a power to seize vehicles.
The following specific measures are already making an impact on nuisance vehicles:
Continuous registration came into effect on 1 January 2004 and monitoring shows that in the first 5 months, the number of disposal notifications were up 20% on the previous year and vehicle licensing up 10%.
The first 5 years of national scheme wheelclamping unlicensed vehicles has encouraged over 500,000 keepers to register their vehicles and generated £68m in additional revenue.
Operation Cubit in Kent removed 5,000 vehicles in the first year, reducing abandoned vehicles by 30%.
34,000 vehicles had been removed by the 31 projects supported by Arson Control Forum's New Project Initiative by September 2003.
Why has there been an increase in abandoned vehicles?
changing scrap metal values
increasing cost and complexity of maintaining vehicles
higher environmental standards for disposal
avoiding the costs of legal motoring
What does the Government plan to do next?
1. Greater enforcement and reform
To try and prevent a rise in nuisance vehicles the government proposes:
Greater Enforcement
Authorities without access to either the DVLA or local police vehicle record will be expected to establish such links to allow them to check who owns the vehicle quickly.
If deemed a local priority, Neighbourhood Renewal partnerships will support grant applications from deprived areas to extend access to the vehicle record to police on the street e.g. hand held devices.
The DVLA will ensure the vehicle record is 97.5% accurate or better by July 2005.
The DVLA will support local action on untaxed vehicles, clamping 100,000 vehicles a year by 2008.
To minimise the overall cost to authorities assuming DVLA powers and encourage greater take up.
To work with the Magistrates Association to continue to raise courts' awareness of the seriousness of environmental crimes and range of possible penalties, particularly using the anti-social behaviour response courts to promote good practice in disposing of these cases.
Reforming powers and responsibilities
To strengthen authority powers and improve the legislative system to better tackle the problem of untaxed vehicles.
To make it an offence to be responsible for or have used a vehicle removed as a nuisance vehicle. Anyone convicted could be fined a maximum of £2,500.
To introduce an offence of using an incorrectly registered vehicle.
Give the police the power to seize and, in appropriate cases, destroy vehicles that are being driven uninsured.
To allow fixed penalties for people who ignore reminders that their insurance has expired.
2. Championing change and showcasing good practice
The government aims to build on good practice and knowledge gained through pilots to tackle nuisance vehicles and create greener safer communities. More specifically it will:
support the development of community focused resources to support action on nuisance vehicles where it is a local priority.
encourage CDRPs to co-ordinate action on nuisance vehicles, as part of their crime and disorder, anti-social behaviour and misuse of drugs strategies.
showcase good practice and establish an advisory service where authorities can provide knowledge and support each other to deliver better practice.
3. Measuring Performance
Accurate information on the level of nuisance vehicles is needed to improve service delivery and help shape our response.
The Governments has set itself a target of a 25% reduction. To measure this performance details of abandoned vehicles removed by local authorities will be recorded consistently across England and Wales using the WasteDataFlow system run by Defra and the Environment Agency.
They also intend to introduce a new Best Value Performance Indicator (BVPI(X21)) to measure the time taken to remove abandoned vehicles after the expiry of the relevant notice period.
The British Crime Survey also records perceptions of whether abandoned vehicles are a problem in a local area, which will further reflect the government's performance.
Last update: Wednesday, September 17, 2008