Pressure builds on Tesco to act on abuse

Asda’s decision to start fining customers who abuse accessible parking bays has cranked up pressure on the leading supermarket chain, Tesco, to follow its lead.

Asda’s trial scheme will see parking attendants issuing £60 fines at six stores on Merseyside. It even tually wants to roll out such enforcement to all its stores.

Asda and Tesco fared badly in the Baywatch survey of super market carparks, carried out by our readers and members of Mobilise and the British Polio Fellowship. Last month’s findings showed more than 23 per cent of accessible bays in Tesco and Asda carparks were being used by vehicles without blue badges.

Sainsbury’s, which performed better but still has a problem with abuse, has already announced that it hopes to move towards firm enforcement of accessible bays in all its stores.

A Tesco spokesman said it had launched several pilot projects aimed at cutting abuse and that a private firm patrolled carparks and fined abusers in about 40 (out of nearly 2,000) of its stores.

But he said Tesco had no plans to fine abusers at other stores.